Jenny is a teenager who has to live up to the “perfect life”. Taking care of her Asperger brother becomes the lens that her inner world is projected upon, together with the dilemma of meeting expectations and the realistic failings of everyday life. Between an absent jet-setting father, real-estate mogul mother and a favourite teacher leaving, Jenny’s disappointment becomes sharper when her drama club fails to secure the championship. Unbeknownst to her, the people around her are also going through their own journeys. Everything converges in a family crisis where all of them are forced to look at each other’s vision of what the perfect life is. Like the year 2020, the film marks a turning point. As events change, viewpoints have to be adjusted. Only with new vision is the future possible.
Wong Kwang Han is a filmmaker, theatre director, writer, and actor. Co-founder of multi-disciplinary group Aporia Society and 2020 Productions. Kwang Han’s feature “Flights Through Darkness' 'has been shown at the Jogja Netpac Asian Film Festival and the ASEAN International Film Festival. He has been nominated for and won awards for directing acting and writing. A believer in good old fashioned storytelling, he is a self-taught and independent filmmaker.
Director’s Comment:
I have lived in Singapore for my entire life and find many aspects of our island fascinating beyond the usual tourist tropes and shallow ideas about the country. There is a unique culture and way of life which I find seldom reflected in the way I want. A film or any work of art that is worth anything should ideally give us a peek into the ‘secrets’ of the culture and the people much as Flaubert’s Sentimental Education gave us a fascinating picture of 18th century France or Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman gave us insights into American society. In much the same fashion, films like Scorcese’s Mean Streets and Woody Allen’s Annie Hall welcomed us into the worlds the directors grew up in. This film hopes to do the same for Singapore. It is not a film about Asperger’s or autism per se but rather a human drama of a Singapore family and the people around them. These are ordinary people you meet every day in Singapore and this is their story reflected in their preoccupations, their cadences, and rhythms of speech, their words, their tears and joys. Some might call this a critique of who we are but I see it as a celebration. Welcome to Singapore.