Singapore
The Singapore International Film Festival (Siff) has a special place in Asia's increasingly packed calendar of movie festivals. Two decades old this year, it's the longest- running international film festival in Southeast Asia. It's also broadening its appeal. Having focused on the region's cinematic output since 1994, it has expanded into Arabic films as well.
Although other film festivals are high on star glitz - Catherine Deneuve and Willem Dafoe attended last year's Bangkok International Film Festival and this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival drew Luc Besson and Rain - the Siff is an unapologetically toned-down event that concentrates on lesser-known movies.
'What we've done over the years is try to look at things that are in front of us,' says festival programmer Philip Cheah. 'These can be the hardest things to see. What distinguishes us is our festival's grit and guts. It's not so much glam and glitz. We look after the smaller voices of Asian cinema, and I think it's an important thing to do. Today, on the festival circuit, everyone looks out for the top directors, but who's going to look after the lesser-known ones?'
It's been a long journey for the Siff, which has always had a low budget - Cheah declines to specify this year's, but it's believed to be less than S$1 million (HK$5.1 million). 'It's the audience that has kept us going all these years,' he says.
Whereas the first Siff in 1987 showed only 50 films, this year's is offering more than 320 titles from 40 countries, including 110 feature films, over 13 days.