Free Hugs

Mia, an ex-prostitute, is trapped in a loveless marriage with the abusive Quan (Sunny Pang, who also stars in Headshot in this year’s Festival lineup), a butcher who runs a roast meat shop. When she meets sensitive funeral director Wu, their passion for one another escalates into an affair. But the path to true love is fraught with jealousy, forcing someone to make a deadly move.

Two neighbors form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs.

A single dad looks to give up drinking and his bartender job in order to impress his son and find work as a magician.

Set in Singapore in 1979, A Year Of No Significance chronicles the gradual disintegration of a middle-aged architect as changes rock the 45th year of his life. Sidelined in the office because of his inability to speak English, Lim Cheng Soon is cut further adrift when his wife leaves him inexplicably one day. His elderly father moves in, forcing him to confront the fact that the former has always preferred his younger brother. Robbed of his identities as architect, husband and son, Cheng Soon struggles in the dusk of his life, raging against the dying light.

A fallen woman seeks redemption at a Singapore rubber plantation. Melodrama.

Three tales of love wrap around the true story of a blind and deaf woman named Theresa Chan. In the first an elderly shopkeeper is devoted to his sick wife. In the second, two teenage girls become soul mates and lovers. In the third a chubby security guard tries to find the courage to woo a beautiful woman who works in his building.

When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.

An American-born Chinese economics professor accompanies her boyfriend to Singapore for his best friend's wedding, only to get thrust into the lives of Asia's rich and famous.

In a world where food has been outlawed, a small band of food lovers risks their skins to defy the authorities and feast on contraband food.

A Youtuber posts an irreverent video trolling a megachurch pastor, in defence of his gay twin brother. He is vilified by society, tried in court, and pitted against a culture that threatens to destroy his family.

In Singapore, a private detective and the British authorities are on the trail of a crime syndicate that kidnaps a nuclear physicist with the aim of selling him to the highest bidder.

50-year-old Jim (Gerald Chew, "Apprentice", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Un Certain Regard) loses his high-flying job in status-conscious Singapore, but his ego and pride compel him to hide this from his wife (Amy J Cheng, "Crazy Rich Asians") and daughter. His only confidante is his best friend (Sivakumar Palakrishnan, "A Yellow Bird", Cannes Film Festival 2016 Critics' Week). Desperately clinging onto the material symbols of his past success, he unlocks a hibernating malevolent force, with sinister roots in long-buried secrets. As his dream life crumbles around him, worlds collide, the lines between then and now become increasingly blurred, and Jim descends into a waking nightmare. REPOSSESSION is a bold, genre-bending film, with an ever-evolving, haunting soundscape from Golden Horse Award-winning composer Teo Wei Yong ("A Land Imagined").

A series of intertwining tales involve "pleasure seekers and pleasure providers" during the course of one night in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. There are three distinct stories, united only by the presence of characters from all the stories in a streetside eatery:

Yoko who works at the editorial department of a small publishing company is a weak OL that is not good at communicating with people. Recently, she felt suspicion of being physically attacked by an abnormal sleepiness, but she know that another person = Yoko enjoys a one – night relationship with men at midnight when she fell asleep. The existence of Yoko eventually begins to erode Yoko’s daily life. Yoko thought about trying to communicate with Yoko through the exchange diary.

Two playboys try to forget previous romances in Singapore – until they meet a beautiful dancer.

After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.

John despises his father for being a failure in life. When John returns home to facilitate his father's funeral, his life comes to a turning point, as he discovers the true motivation of his misjudged father.

A 2006 Singaporean film and the sequel to the 2002 film, I Not Stupid. A satirical comedy, I Not Stupid Too portrays the lives, struggles and adventures of three Singaporean youths - 15-year-old Tom, his 8-year-old brother Jerry and their 15-year-old friend Chengcai - who have a strained relationship with their parents. The film explores the issue of poor parent-child communication.

An aspiring filmmaker, who is also down on luck, goes to Singapore to meet a producer, but what follows is misadventure after misadventure, with a dash of romance thrown in.

After the war, Matt Gordon returns to Singapore to retrieve a fortune in smuggled pearls. Arrived, he reminisces in flashback about his prewar fiancée, alluring Linda, and her disappearance during the Japanese attack. But now Linda resurfaces...with amnesia and married to rich planter Van Leyden. Meanwhile, sinister fence Mauribus schemes to get Matt's pearls.