SINGAPORE AT THE OSCARS
It’s Academy Awards month, with the likes of “Barbenheimer”, and set to fight for the main gongs. It made us think: how has Singapore fared in “Hollywood’s night of nights”? Roll out the red carpet and we’ll reveal all…
Poor Things Best International Film The Holdovers
This year’s five nominees for the Best International Film Oscar come from Italy, Japan, Spain, Germany and Britain. Singapore has never been nominated in this category – nor have Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, for the record. (Vietnam has had one nomination – in 1993.)
The Scent of Green Papaya
However, Singapore does regularly submit films for consideration – it has done so 15 times. (Indonesia has submitted 23 films and Malaysia eight.) This year, the submission was the Anthony Chendirected drama The Breaking Ice.
Singapore’s 2005 submission – Be With Me, inspired by the true story of a woman known as “the Hellen Keller of Southeast Asia” – was disqualified from the category for having more than 50 percent of the dialogue in English rather than a foreign language.
Best Actor/Actress
Malaysia’s Michelle Yeoh famously became the first Asian to win the Best Actress award at last year’s Oscars (for
But Singapore hasn’t been so lucky – we’re yet to be nominated for an Actor/Actress award.
No Best Film nods either; (2018) was set largely in Singapore, but was an American film through and through – in any case, despite a Critics’ Choice win and some Golden Globe nominations, it was snubbed by Academy Award voters.
All At Once). Individual Awards
Which brings us to Nickson Fong, a computer graphics artist who is currently the only Singaporean with an Oscar to his name. He received the Academy Award for Best Technical Achievement in 2012 for the technique of “Pose Space Deformation”, which makes animated characters appear more lifelike. It’s been used in films such as and
Pretty good for a self-confessed “school dropout” whose principal apparently suggested to Nickson’s mother that he find a job at McDonald’s!