Singapore-born filmmaker Nelicia Low’s characteristic debut “Pierce” is making waves on the pageant circuit, securing the best director award at Karlovy Vary and incomes a spot on the Busan International Film Festival. The movie attracts deeply from Low’s private experiences as each a former nationwide fencer and sister to an autistic sibling.
“Pierce” follows Zijie, a younger fencer who reconnects together with his estranged older brother Zihan after Han’s launch from seven years in juvenile jail for killing an opponent throughout a fencing competitors. Believing Han’s claims of innocence, Zijie defies his mom’s makes an attempt to erase Zihan from their lives and decides to assist him. As Zihan trains Zijie for the nationwide championships, their relationship deepens. Nonetheless, an argument triggers Zihan’s hostile previous, leaving Zijie questioning whether or not his brother may truly be a violent sociopath.
Low’s journey to crafting “Pierce” started with a violent crime that occurred on the Taipei subway, the place a younger man’s actions shocked the neighborhood. What struck Low, nonetheless, wasn’t simply the act itself, however the aftermath. “Whereas his dad and mom went onto the streets of Taipei to publicly apologize and begged the federal government to execute their son, his youthful brother visited him on the police station, crying, in denial that his older brother may do one thing so monstrous.”
This incident sparked a interval of introspection for Low, main her to look at her personal familial relationships. “His youthful brother’s response made me surprise about my relationship with my older brother,” she explains. “After I was younger, I used to idealize him to be a loving, caring older brother, however as I grew up, I noticed that our complete relationship was made up in my head, as he’s truly autistic.”
Low’s private journey grew to become the emotional spine of “Pierce.” “Accepting that I might by no means know if my brother truly reciprocated my love has been a painful journey for me, and is similar one the lead character Zijie takes in ‘Pierce,’” she says.
The director’s background in aggressive fencing supplied one other layer. “I later added the theme of fencing to the story due to the character of Zihan, Zijie’s older brother, who was hyper-intelligent, enigmatic and manipulative,” Low explains. “I was a nationwide fencer for Singapore, so I do know the game very nicely. Fencing may be very very like chess performed with swords, all about technique and predicting one another’s strikes.”
This strategic factor of fencing serves as a metaphor for the psychological interaction between the brothers within the movie. “This additionally displays Zijie’s expertise when he’s making an attempt to guess what his brother’s true intentions and motives are, if his brother is definitely a sociopath, and if his brother actually cares for him,” Low says.
At its core, “Pierce” grapples with profound questions concerning the nature of affection and notion. Low articulates the central theme: “Pierce asks one important query – What occurs while you challenge your emotions onto those that you’re keen on, solely to appreciate it could all be simply an phantasm?”
The movie’s success at Karlovy Range and its Busan choice have been validating for Low. However she finds essentially the most satisfaction in viewers reactions. “The emotional win for me has been the response from the viewers,” Low says. “Viewers members got here as much as me or despatched me messages on Instagram to inform me how a lot the movie moved them and blew them away, and plenty of of them talked about that they known as their sibling to inform them they liked them proper after watching ‘Pierce.’”
Producer Jeremy Chua of Potocol was drawn to Low’s distinctive perspective from the outset. “I’m at all times looking for a director with distinctive life experiences who can adapt these subliminal moments to cinema,” Chua says. “When Nelicia first launched us to this story, she described in vivid element what it takes to win a fencing match. She used evocative imagery for instance the killer intuition – explosive but agile bursts of bodily aggression coupled with the psychological thoughts video games employed to trick your opponent.”
Chua was notably impressed by Low’s imaginative and prescient for translating these components to movie. “She defined how she needed to meld these intense components of aggressive sports activities into course, cinematography and enhancing,” he remembers. “Instantly I used to be drawn to her distinct method to tackling the dualities of affection and conflict, violence and vulnerability, in a manner that solely she may as a former nationwide fencer.”
Producer, Sam Chua Weishi provides, “After I first met Nelicia to speak about ‘Pierce,’ we spoke about our want and ambition to provide a movie that will not solely tug at our heartstrings however problem the best way by which we perceive the world round us. After watching her work in her brief movie ‘Freeze’ (2014), I used to be satisfied that Nelicia brings out one of the best in her actors and her inventive collaborators to ship an emotionally-charged, visual-aural spectacle.”
The manufacturing of “Pierce” additionally introduced a chance for worldwide collaboration. “‘Pierce’ additionally supplied an fascinating alternative to discover a brand new co-production construction between Singapore-Taiwan-Poland,” Weishi says.
Following the success of “Pierce,” Low is already at work on her subsequent challenge. “I’m presently engaged on my subsequent movie, ‘Duet,’ that’s set in San Francisco within the early 2000s,” she reveals. “Like ‘Pierce,’ ‘Duet’ can also be extremely autobiographical in its emotional core. It’s a comedic-melodrama in English and Cantonese, a couple of profitable Cantonese opera actress in her late 40s whose profession is in jeopardy when a contemporary younger actress threatens to steal away her long-term stage accomplice, an older charismatic cross-dressing actress who performs male roles.”
In the meantime, Chua is concerned in a number of initiatives, together with The Maw Naing’s movie “Ma: The Cry of Silence,” which within the New Currents Competitors at Busan, Natesh Hegde’s Busan APM project “Tiger’s Pond,” which is within the ultimate levels of publish manufacturing and Rafael Manuel’s “Filipinana,” which won prizes at APM final 12 months.
Weishi is collaborating with rising Singaporean administrators on their debut options, together with coming-of-age drama “Midnight Blue Spring” by Giselle Lin, and dramedy “Construct-to-Order” (working title) by Huang Junxiang.
