Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua on his new film about surveillance, Stranger Eyes, and why he’s after collaborations
- Yeo Siew Hua’s latest film Stanger Eyes explores the idea of being spied on for data ‘in a time such as has never been seen before’
- He talks about his previous films and how Chinese philosophy figures such as Confucius have influenced him, and why he’s exploring working with other writers
Beauty might well be in the eye of the beholder, but these days, so is everything else.
Surveillance is a 21st century growth industry, the street corner without a camera an endangered species. And in Stranger Eyes, his third feature film, Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua brings the idea of being spied on uncomfortably close to home.
“Stranger Eyes is about surveillance, but unlike in science fiction, I’m more concerned with what it means to see someone – to see and be seen,” says Yeo, 39, during a video call from Buenos Aires, home to Yeo and his Argentinian wife.
“It starts with a missing child and some mysterious DVDs,” he says, discs that feature the private life of the child’s young father. “We’re living in a time such as has never been seen before, in which our existence is very much an image. More than ever, it’s an image to be seen, either on social media to affirm that existence, or as a subject of surveillance: data.”
Starring Taiwanese heavyweights Lee Kang-sheng and Wu Chien-ho, Stranger Eyes was shot wholly in Singapore and completed in the past few weeks. “A theatrical release is the plan for this year,” says Yeo, “but as with most of our films we’re looking for a world premiere at a leading festival, so we’re now submitting it.”
A Land Imagined (2018) was only Yeo’s second feature film, yet saw him become the first Singaporean to win the Golden Leopard award at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland. It was, he says when pushed, “a big deal for me and the people supporting me”.
A glance at Yeo’s résumé reveals that his talents do not all lie behind the camera, either: he is credited as screenwriter on almost every production.
Directing his own scripted ideas was “definitely something I started off doing”, he says, but adds, “I am exploring working with other writers now and trying to create a team. Because I’m trained as a writer there is an aspect of that control I can’t help but make part of my creative process. But collaborating on writing would be interesting, something new.”
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Perhaps solo contemplation is a product of Yeo’s education: he is a philosophy graduate of the National University of Singapore.
“I can’t escape the fact that I think in a way informed by my philosophy background,” he says. “Maybe I conceptualise my films differently from people who start by creating characters and psychologies. I always start from certain premises based on concepts I’ve been obsessed about.
“My training was in premodern Chinese philosophy: Confucius, Lao Tzu. But I take it and adapt it to more contemporary philosophical discussions.”
Whatever the period, Yeo was always going to become a disrupter in the Singapore arts world.
Witness his involvement, as a founder member, with the 13 Little Pictures film collective. “This is a bunch of filmmakers and friends; we got together in 2009 to make films and help each other with our work,” he says.
“Now we’re all established artists, but it’s good that we’re still working together, even though some of us have moved. There are five of us – the name is a lie!”
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Arts-scene watchers might also wonder what’s in a name when it comes to the oddly titled soft/WALL/studs, which was founded in 2016 and folded in 2021.
“You could call that another kind of artists’ collective, which stopped during the pandemic,” says Yeo. “A bunch of artists needing a space got together to pay the rent and curate things – in Singapore, like Hong Kong, real estate is very expensive.
“I was involved in cinematic events and as a documentarian I was interested in bringing back documentary-watching and appreciation. A long time ago we had documentary festivals in Singapore, but those died out.
“We put together programmes that interested us; and documentaries fitted in well with the arts conversations going on at that time,” he says.
“Screenings were well attended by those in the artists’ community. It was like a cine club, in a part-industrial building in Geylang. It had a roof for open-air screenings and we held workshops, book recitals, parties and exhibitions. Real fun.”
And as if Yeo’s broad-palette artistic credentials required any further buffing, there follows mention of his 2020 “short video work, An Invocation to the Earth. It’s a tribute to the fallen environmental defenders of Southeast Asia – a lot have been hurt or killed by certain state apparatuses”, he says.
“It was co-commissioned by the Singapore International Film Festival and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Madrid and is available online at TBA21on st_age.
“It’s being shown at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Saudi Arabia” – where it was presented by its director – “and was screened recently at Hong Kong Art Basel.”
A restlessly creative all-rounder, Yeo is obviously one to keep an eye on, wherever he is in the world.
