117. 36th Singapore International Film Festival (2025) Dispatch (Resurrection, Silent Friend, Two Seasons Two Strangers, Amoeba, and MORE!)

Another festival coverage episode? We’re back to back with Asian film festivals and Ben returns to Singapore to cover the hottest films from the festival circuit and the region for the 36th Singapore International Film Festival. Our film coverage spans the most hotly contested tickets (Silent Friend, Girl, Resurrection, Sentimental Value), cinema classics (Matador, Water, Bye Bye Love), and promising first features from the region (Amoeba, A Useful Ghost, Old Man and His Car)

This is a spicy and fun episode where Ben reflects honestly about his festival experience and Singapore’s cinema culture, as well as sharing his optimism with the concurrent ground-up efforts (The Daily, FFIGS) reinvigorating that culture. On top of all that, we also find the time to do a very special celebration in the middle of the episode.

Links:

Correspondence / The Daily

⁠Ben’s piece on the Cinephile Pass

FFIGS

Deepa Mehta Write-up

Luca Guadagnino video on costumes 

Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers at MoMA

Madame Morible Wicked Witch meme

Interview with Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke (forthcoming!)

Correspond with us at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com 

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:03:15 Festival as a whole 

00:08:45 Netflix acquisition of WB

00:11:51 Festival operations

00:20:33 Festival passes

00:24:15 Banned films

00:27:48 SGIFilmFeud

00:28:25 Correspondence / The Daily

00:30:56 FFIGS

00:34:40 Optimism

00:38:14 The films / Bye Bye Love (1974) dir. Fujisawa Isao

00:43:10 How Dare You? (2025) dir. Mipo O

00:46:14 Two Seasons, Two Strangers (2025) dir. Sho Miyake

00:48:29 Audience behaviour

00:51:25 Girl (2025) dir. Shu Qi

00:56:20 Resurrection (2025) dir. Bi Gan

01:02:25 Water (2005) dir. Deepa Mehta

01:07:02 A Celebration

01:09:00 Sentimental Value (2025) dir. Joachim Trier

01:11:25 Hamnet (2025) dir. Chloe Zhao

01:14:25 Late Fame (2025) dir. Kent Jones

01:18:07 Matador (1986) dir. Pedro Almodovar

01:21:20 Silent Friend (2025) dir. Ildikó Enyedi 

01:27:00 SEA Shorts Programme

01:31:36 The Old Man and His Car (2025) dir. Michael Kam

01:36:50 Amoeba (2025) dir. Tan Siyou

01:43:10 A Useful Ghost (2025) dir. Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke

01:51:16 Wrapup

01:57:30 Bonus