'To be the opening night's film is incredible ... and since it's been announced there's been a real buzz. Distributors have been writing to me asking for a preview tape, totally unlike 12 Storeys, where we were country bumpkins going there trying to sell the film. This time we have Bavaria [Film International], as the world sales agent,' he says.

Be With Me is the first film Khoo has directed in eight years. Shot with a cast of mainly first-time actors, including 62-year-old deaf-mute Theresa Chan and 61-year-old Chiew Sung Ching (Khoo's former English tutor), the 90-minute drama contains just 150 seconds of dialogue. 'I was actually gunning for a completely silent movie, but it didn't quite work out for this one,' he says. 'I believe music and silence are important. With a silent movie, you can really engage the audience in terms of what's happening.'

Khoo credits two major influences on his artistic direction. 'Taxi Driver [by Martin Scorsese] was really the film that threw me into a different landscape where cinema was concerned. One shot really got me going,' he says describing the film's graphic final sequence, while puffing away on his third cigarette.

He also said his stay in Sydney as a student, where he saw films that were banned in Singapore, such as Clockwork Orange, and where he discovered small art-house European films, also opened his eyes to a different kind of filmmaking, an alternative to Hollywood cinema.

He showed artistic talent from an early age. 'My mum said I started drawing when I was three years old,' he says. By five, he was sketching short cartoons - he still draws detailed storyboards - and by eight he'd started playing with his mother's Super 8 camera, making 'little animated films' with his GI Joe figures.

By age 13, Khoo was directing some of his friends in short films he made 'with dialogues and little stories'. While Khoo says his mother has always been encouraging of his chosen career, he admits his father, the late Singaporean hotel tycoon Khoo Teck Puat, was not as supportive.

'He did offer me $2,000 once to make a movie, which shows how much he knew about this business,' he says. 'I know if I had asked him for more money he would have given it to me, but I always wanted to do it on my own.'

After studying cinematography at the City Art Institute in Sydney, Khoo started out as a freelance commercial director, while dabbling in short films. In 1990, his first animated short, Barbie Digs Joe, won five awards at the Singapore Video Competition and became the first Singapore short to travel to festivals abroad. His next work, August (1991), inspired by his Pomeranian dog, won local short at the 4th Singapore International Film Festival.

In 1994, Khoo courted controversy at home and abroad with Pain, a graphic portrait of a sado-masochistic young man's obsession, inspired by one of his friends. Though this film was banned, and remained so until 1998, it still won him the best director and special achievement award at the 1994 Singapore International Film Festival. Khoo would use the sponsorship given with the special achievement award to bankroll his first feature film, the psychological drama Mee Pok Man (1995).

'I'm a firm believer in destiny. If I hadn't won for Pain, I doubt at that time I would have made my first full-length feature. It just propelled me and I felt it was a signal, time to do it,' he says.

Mee Pok Man, the tragic love story of a slow-witted noodle shop vendor and a prostitute, went on to pick up prizes at festivals in Singapore, Pusan and Fukuoka and was credited for reviving Singapore's film industry.

His second feature film, 12 Storeys (1997) about the alienation of urban life, earned him further recognition. But instead of being lured by the sirens of Hong Kong (both Golden Harvest and Francis Ford Coppola's Hong Kong-based production company, Chrome Dragon, approached him), he decided to concentrate on his career as a producer. 'I just couldn't find anything interesting to direct. I didn't feel comfortable with the material I saw,' he says, though he points out that he wouldn't be opposed to working in Hong Kong if it was the right project.

In 1995 he founded Zhao Wei Films ('Good Luck' in Putonghua), which, over the years, has produced commercial successes such as Jack Neo's Liang Po Po - The Movie, as well as Royston Tan's award-winning 15. 'I've always been a bit of a voyeur,' he says. 'I love to see other people direct, so I really enjoy producing. I'm just nosey.'

Khoo credits his teenage nephew for giving him the idea for his third film, Be With Me, and his wife for prodding him to 'move along'.

'My nephew was going on about this girl he was so in love with. How he felt the electricity in his arm when he touched her. The honesty of this love made me reflect about my own love life, and I thought it would be interesting to do something about teenage love, middle-aged love and then project myself as an older person thinking back and having memories,' he says. 'But I also wanted the film to end on a high note of hope. A feel-good film, especially after many people pointed out how bleak and dark my other films were.'

A chance meeting with Theresa Chan at a wedding in 2003 helped him create the main character for the film. Chan, who dabbled in acting in her youth, is cast as herself in the film. 'I've always been inspired by real people, real stories. I've always gravitated towards storytelling. Initially, through comics and, later, short films,' says Khoo, who prefers to cast unknowns. 'A lot of the characters I create are around real people that I know so when I approach them it's easy for them to execute,' he says.

The movie cost only S$200,000 ($950,000) to make, even less than the budget for his previous film. 'I've always liked little films and I don't think big budgets create good films. It's really about what you want to do and how you want to tell it,' he says.

So far, the critical buzz around Be With Me has been positive, with some murmuring that the movie could be Singapore's first shot at the Oscars. Khoo isn't thinking that far ahead. 'I don't know. I never have too high expectations of things, but when things happen I embrace them.'

Khoo promises he won't wait another eight years to make his next movie. 'I'm getting too old,' he says, although he hints that he's already at work on a new project, which will feature only one female character.

'It's going to be black and white and silent,' he says. 'Hopefully, the script will ready this November.'

58th Cannes International Film Festival. Ends May 22. For details go to www. festival-cannes.org.

'I've always liked little films and I don't think big budgets create good films. It's really about what you want to do'