To Speak | Craig Ower | Cambodia / Australia / Singapore | 2007 | 104 mins | PG
Tickets (at $8.40, $7.40 …) for SIFF will be available at SISTIC or online at www.filmfest.org.sgBased on a true story, To Speak takes us on a journey into a land haunted by a horrific past, a place where millions struggle daily against desperate poverty. Yet in the midst of this pessimism, lies a voice that will speak hope to its people.

http://tospeakthemovie.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

Audience questions about TO SPEAK
WHERE DID THE WONDERFUL MUSIC COME FROM?
The music soundtrack was written specifically for the film by the highly talented Reuben Kee.

At only 20 years of age, Reuben put together more than 50 minutes of music combining the rhythms and textures of many asia instruments to give TO SPEAK, its unique and moving soundtrack. (Yes, Reuben was just 20 when he wrote the music)

Start Time:	Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 7:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 2:00pm
Location:	Two screenings 10th & 13th will be at Sinema Old Sch at Mt Sophia. Charity Screening on 26th@UWC.
Street:	Mount Sophia
City/Town:	Singapore City, Singapore

More details on the screening of “To Speak at the Singapore International Film Festival here.

The Tabitha Foundation in Singapore will hold a special charity screening of To Speak in Singapore on 26 April this year. The ticket costs SGD60.00 per person, inclusive of a reception after the screening, where you can have two glasses of wine and finger food.

Reuben Kee wrote the music soundtrack for the film.
A special limited edition CD with the music from the film will be made available for sale at the venue.

Reuben Kee died on November 23, 2007 as the result of a boating accident that claimed the lives of several contestants in the 2007 Cambodia Tonle Sap competition.

Funds raised from the event will go to support the work of Tabitha Cambodia, the organisation upon which To Speak is based.

Date:	Saturday, April 26, 2008
Time:	6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location:	United World College, 1270 Dover Road
Street:	United World College
City/Town:	Singapore, Singapore

More on the Charity Screening here.

If you are in Canada or Australia, you may want to attend the charity screening currently scheduled:

http://www.tospeakmovie.com/To%20Speak%20Movie/Home.html

Charity Screenings:
Ottawa, Canada on May 2nd
Sydney, Australia on June 12th

Reuben Kee wrote the entire soundtrack for the film.

Will anyone be able to help me purchase the special limited edition CD?

Yes, I’m way behind in getting my hands on this since the book was launched in August 2006, and I only bought and read it today.

It’s a very easy read, very colloquial, which makes its form very apt for the content, for the stories [sort of like True Singapore Gay (coming out) Stories] are very very real.

It’s not pro-gay, but pro-acceptance — of who you are and who the people around you are. The stories also demonstrate how allowing others the chance to accept you as you are may prove to be the best thing you can ever do to make your life fulfilled, instead of building the mountain of lies like the one I’ve been piling up on these years to protect the truth about Sam and I from my parents and the extended family.

“…in ten years time, I’ll be 38 years old, not young anymore. And [my father]‘d be 68, well into his twilight years. If by then, he can’t acknowledge me and my other half, if we can’t all be happy together, then that’s just sad.”

I don’t know if it’s the easy way out for me to shrug it off and postpone telling my parents until after graduation, because I can jolly well postpone it to after I find financial stability, after I find a place of my own, after this or after that — will it really make a difference to their ability to come to terms with it?

I don’t want them to leave this world without my being honest with them.

So now, I can either leave the book on the living room table to speak volumes on its own, or stash it in some corner of my cupboard hoping they won’t (or will?) pry when I’m not around.

To watch a movie here you’ve gotta pay CDN$11.95, and your ticket is a piece of receipt paper. Hmm.

And it’s FREE SEATING.

Which poses several problems:

1. You can buy your ticket way early, but end up having to sit at the front because you didn’t join the line-up early enough (don’t we all have better things to do than join the line half an hour before the movie starts).

2. Inconsiderate people deprive you of a good seat because they think their bags deserve them more than you do.

3. Your unable-to-make-decisions friends cannot make up their minds on good seats, and make you move from row to row in order for them to decide.

But I guess the good thing about it is that we can buy our tickets only half an hour before the movie and go right in and get good seats?

And being cheapo Singaporeans students on a tight budget, we sneaked into another theatre for another movie after, and no one cared. I guess many systems here go on trusting-the-general-public’s-integrity basis, so people like us work our way easily into the loopholes.

On another note, I am pleased with the censorship here, or lack thereof. Heh. Nudity scenes come in PG-rated films!

Have you ever watched a play where you see smoke coming out of characters’ mouths? I did! Today!

I caught Shakespeare’s (the Bard’s) Romeo & Juliet at Bard on the Beach (an annual festival kinda thing, only in the summer) today! Yes, it was a very good production, but I think the most common words that came out of the audience’s mouths right after the show weren’t “that was brilliant”, but rather, “it’s soooooooo cold!!!”

Romeo & Juliet was performed on the main stage, which, along with all the other stages in their tents, were an open concept, so the back of the stage is uncovered. Thanks to the rain and direct sea breeze, the audience was freezing.

I believe this was the backdrop?

The main stage (centre of stage is where the famous balcony scene is)

Yeah yeah, I’m stingy, I’m a miser, and very ungenerous when it comes to certain things.

Most of my friends know that I bitch a lot about the smallest things. Hmm. I’ve been here in Vancouver for 2 weeks now, and I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Nothing…other than my whines on the cost of textbooks. So. I decided to cut cost on textbooks, because I am a sore loser in the publisher-reader game. I don’t know why I feel so unwilling to spend so much money on textbooks here, to the extent of becoming a laughing stock among my housemates for making it to the top of their cheapskate friends’ list. Hmm.

Back in Fudan, I never photocopied a book, although that can be done so easily and inexpensively. All you have to do is pass the book to the staff at the shop and collect your book and photocopied version a couple of hours later or latest the next day, bounded with a cover page even, and pay almost peanuts. However, textbooks over there are already rather affordable (come on, S$4 for a textbook?), heavily discounted on several occasions (student perks), or the text is already a photocopied book available for collection in the teachers’ office.

Today, I stood in front of the photocopy machine for nearly an hour to photocopy 2 books — a novel and a play. They don’t have such a photocopying service here to copy a book, afterall there are copyright issues, and if I really wanna do so I have to pay 20 cents for every page, which will cost me way more than the cost of the book itself. I believe there will be more photocopying done by me over the next few days. Haha. The censored books below cost $10.50 (used book) and $13.95 each, exclusive of tax, but they were photocopied for approximately $2 each. I will be returning these books to the bookstore for my refund soon. Yippeeee!

Sorry venerable author and playwright, for depriving you, or your family if you aren’t around, for your fees, which I’m sure the publishers take a big portion of anyway.

Tomorrow, after asking my friend whether she wants to join me in hanging out at the photocopy machine to copy our TC text together (500+ pages, so I’m crossing my fingers that she’s as cheapo as me), I’ll be able to save about $60 on the TC text! There are some books I won’t be copying so I’ll be absorbing the cost, but the total savings for books I will photocopy is $100! Yay!

*observes moment of silence*

…is a secret. So go and watch it for yourself.

Haha. It’s a not bad secret la.

Be spooked by Alone! The movie, I mean. Rather frightening, though it wasn’t all about the ghost that chills. I think the cruel fact of human nature depicted is what terrifies.

I shall not have any spoilers here. Go watch it, but don’t watch it alone yar? Okay okay, I know the pun isn’t funny lah…