APM - Asian Project Market

 

Back to list GEYLANG (aka Passion of Shangri-La)

Director’s Profile

Boi Kwong is a Singaporean film producer/director with more than 15 years of film production experience. He is well known in the industry for his people skills and his creative eye.
In 2000, Boi received the Special Jury Prize at the Singapore International Film Festival Silver Screen Awards for his debut short film, Wait (2000). He has since worked with acclaimed production houses on television commercials, music videos and feature films.
He worked as an assistant director on low budget independent film Becoming Royston (Nicholas Chee, 2007), which ignited Boi’s passion for feature-length filmmaking.
Boi’s directorial feature debut, The Days (2008), which was inspired by his own life, was nominated at various international film festivals, including for the New Asian Talent Award at Shanghai International Film Festival 2009, in Asian Connection at CPH:PIX Copenhagen International Film Festival 2009, and Best Cinematography at Singapore International Film Festival 2009.

Synopsis

A provocative thriller, Passion of Shangri-La interweaves five un-connected stories about money, class, ambition and love in a seductive web of crime, sex, guilt, violence and perversion. Set in one tumultuous night in the red-light district of Geylang, this action-packed arthouse drama reveals the seamy underbelly of Singapore – the darkness that throbs beneath the tourist-friendly veneer of the polished city.
The five characters are: Jay, a doctor pining for his dead daughter; Shangri-La, an illegal Chinese prostitute; her young lover, Ajie, a runaway heir; Celine, an ambitious executive; and a pimp obsessed with money. While chasing their own illusions they inevitably collide, their disconnected existences interlocking in a night of non-stop action and plot twists.
No character is what they seem – ambiguous morals color the motivations and actions of each: Celine’s love for her family drives her to commit indecent acts; Jay’s grief for a dead daughter leads him into a life of crime; the pimp has a heart of gold; Shangri-La seeks a safe haven in all the wrong places; and Ajie is on the run from an unloving father. Each plot strand peels back the layers that hide the heart-breaking truth of human existence.

Achievements

2022 Golden Horse Film Festival
2022 Golden Horse Award
2023 Rotterdam International Film Festival
Released in Singapore

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