Like Shadows Through Leaves premiers at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2021

"This surround sound film is one part of an ongoing engagement with Tanglin Halt, one of Singapore’s oldest social housing estates, which runs alongside a formerrailway track. The railway was curiously owned by the Malaysian state until 2011 meaning that a subsequent ten-meter-wide zone of indeterminate-governance ran through the heart of Singapore since independence, playing host to a fecundity of more-than-human activities. Ornithologists have observed 105 species of birds in this single patch of urban scrub. Currently, the land along the tracks is being re-purposed as green corridor through a burgeoning biotech and media hub. Once-celebrated, modern housing blocks are being demolished and low-income residents relocated. Unofficial tree shrines, community farms and gathering places have been cleared. Repeated Migrant Ecologies returns to this contested site explore the calls, echoes, shadows memories, everyday magic and transformative encounters that still animate this zone."

Conceptualized by Professor Lucy Davis, together with: Sound Designer, Zai Tang; Cinematographer & Editor, Kee Ya Ting. 

Editor, Daniel Hui & Design Studio Crop Singapore. 

Read more about the film here.

Read more about the competition here.