SINGAPORE YOUTH FILM FESTIVAL 2026
Singapore Youth Film Festival (SYFF) features a two week-long festival of screenings, talks, award ceremony, and celebrations, spotlighting filmmakers who have journeyed with *SCAPE through mentorships and incubations.
Catch the nominated films from 29 Jan - 8 Feb 2026!
YOUTH INSPIRATION AWARD
Giselle Lin Xuan Qing is a Singaporean writer-director.
In 2021, her undergrad thesis short film, Yi Yi (Time Flows in Strange Ways on Sundays), premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2023, she returned to Locarno’s Pardi di Domani international competition with her documentary short I look into the mirror and repeat to myself.
The film went on to win the Critics Prize at the QCinema International Film Festival 2023 and the Best Singapore Short Film Award at the Singapore International Film Festival 2023.
She is currently developing two feature-length projects, one of which, Midnight Blue Spring, won the grand prize of the inaugural Locarno Residency.
Most recently, her short film, Children’s Day, premiered in the Berlinale Shorts competition at the Berlin International Film Festival 2025.
Open Youth Category
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Student Category
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MOST PROMISING AWARD
Canden Chen, is a student at Victoria Junior College, where he pursues Art as part of his studies. As the top Art Elective Programme graduate of Victoria School of his cohort, Canden has developed a strong foundation in visual and creative arts.
Canden is an all-round creative, with a passion for drawing, music, Chinese calligraphy, photography, videography and film making. He is a multi-award winner in both piano and Chinese calligraphy, achievements that speak to his dedication and artistic flair.
He has a unique “show not tell” signature approach to his filmmaking. Canden’s films rely on visual storytelling and evocative soundtracks - fusing music, emotions and narratives to unfold the story naturally on screen. Through thoughtful editing and a keen sense of mood, he strives to create films that resonate universally, letting each scene speak for itself.
Despite his young age, he has been commissioned to produce commercial works for Future Mobility Asia (FMA) 2022 in China, ZOUK Halloween, Ang Leong Huat and ELEFANT.
Selection Committee
Lincoln Yeo
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Lincoln Yeo is a cinematographer based in Singapore whose work spans fiction, documentaries, music videos and commercials throughout Asia and Europe.
His films have been screened at Berlinale International Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Golden Horse Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, New Directors New Films, SXSW, and Palm Springs International ShortFest.
His latest feature work includes Dreaming & Dying (Locarno Film Festival 2023 - Pardo d'oro for Best Feature Film - Cineasti del Presente Competition & Swatch First Feature Award), directed by Nelson Yeo.
Lincoln is also an alumnus of Berlinale Talents and Busan Asian Film Academy where he won the ARRI Scholarship Award.
Aditi Shivaramakrishnan
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Aditi Shivaramakrishnan (she/her) works as an editor and writer. A former arts manager at Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film, she has also moderated Q&As for the Singapore International Film Festival and contributed to its annual festival guides. In 2024, she was part of the Selection Panel for Singapore Shorts ‘24 and a Writing Fellow at Cinemovement Lab VII. Her arts writing has been published in the Asian Film Archive’s Despatches, ArtsEquator, Esplanade Offstage, Jom, and elsewhere.
Pearl Phoo
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Phoo Myet Che, Pearl is a Singapore-based arts and cultural worker originally from Myanmar. She has contributed to the local arts scene through programming, writing, and community engagement with various organisations and collectives. Pearl was part of the team behind Short Circuit, a film festival spotlighting queer short films. Her writing, featured in platforms like the Asian Film Archive and 3-Act Magazine, explores cinema, identity, and regional histories. She wishes to collaborate on more projects that foster dialogue and cultural exchange through the arts.
Lenne Chai
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Lenne Chai (b. 1991) is a Singaporean photographer and filmmaker whose work reimagines nostalgia and fantasy as tools for social critique. Recognized by Vogue Singapore as “one of Singapore’s most promising fashion photographers,” she has built a career that bridges local and international creative industries. Now based in Los Angeles, Lenne began her journey in 2010, photographing for leading publications and brands such as Vogue, Gucci, W Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Esquire, and Harper’s Bazaar.
Deeply influenced by her upbringing in Singapore, Lenne explores themes of queerness, heritage, and cultural memory through staged imagery and cinematic storytelling. Her work is a portal into alternative histories – imagining a Singapore where LGBTQ+ narratives are centered, where schools are safe spaces for queer youths, and where cultural traditions are reinterpreted through a contemporary lens. Her projects, which challenge societal norms while celebrating Southeast Asian identity, have been featured in BBC World News, CNN, Vogue, and Dazed, and exhibited at Objectifs, Singapore Art Week, Gillman Barracks, Altura Los Angeles, among others.
Through her practice, Lenne continues to shape Singapore’s artistic landscape by challenging conventions, expanding conversations on queerness and cultural identity, and mentoring the next generation of visual storytellers.
Armiliah Aripin
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Armiliah Aripin is a Singaporean editor currently based in London. Prior to pursuing an MA in Editing at the National Film and Television School (NFTS), she spent a decade editing TV documentaries (National Geographic, Discovery), dramas and promos (NBC, BBC, MTV). Some of the films that she has edited include Shé (Snake) by Renee Zhan (Sundance 2024), Strawberry Shortcake by Tan Siyou (Locarno 2021), Ajoomma by He Shuming (Busan 2022) and Dreaming and Dying by Nelson Yeo (Locarno 2023).
Rachel Wong
Selection Committee (Student Category)
Rachel Wong is Assistant Curator of Public Programmes at ArtScience Museum, where she curates the film and moving image programmes for ArtScience Cinema and VR Gallery. She was co-curator of the exhibition Altered States: Experiments in Moving Image at ArtScience Museum. Rachel graduated with a degree in History of Art at University College London and previously worked at the Asian Film Archive as an Engagement Officer for film festivals such as State of Motion and Asian Restored Classics.
Selection Committee
Amanda Lee Koe
Selection Committee (Open Youth Category)
Born and raised in Singapore, Amanda Lee Koe has lived in Beijing, Berlin and Bangkok and is now based in New York. She was the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize for the short story collection Ministry of Moral Panic (Epigram, 2014), shortlisted for the Frankfurt Book Fair's LiBeraturpreis and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt's International Literature Prize. Her debut novel, Delayed Rays of A Star (Doubleday, 2019), won the Henfield Prize, awarded to the best work of fiction by an MFA candidate at Columbia University's School of the Arts. It was a Straits Times #1 Bestseller, and an NPR Best Books of the Year.
Jolyn Wu
Selection Committee (Open Youth Category)
Jolyn Wu has been an active contributor to Singapore’s arts scene for the last 10 years. A believer in the power of the arts to inspire and connect, Jolyn has had to opportunity to work with like-minded individuals in both Singapore’s theatre and film industry.
Jolyn is currently a Manager under the Media Industry Development division of the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA).
Tan Siyou
Selection Committee (Open Youth Category)
Tan Siyou is a Singaporean filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her short films Hello Ahma (2019) and Strawberry Cheesecake (2021) played at festivals such as the Berlinale, Toronto, Locarno, among others. She is working on her first feature film, Amoeba.
Priyageetha Dia
Selection Committee (Open Youth Category)
Priyageetha Dia works with time-based media and installation. Her practice braids themes of Southeast Asian labour histories, speculation of the tropics, and ancestral memory meeting machine logics.
Her recent exhibitions include 4th Bangkok Art Biennale (2024); Manifesta 15, Barcelona (2024); 60th La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2024); Arts House, Melbourne (2024); Diriyah Biennale, Saudi (2024); Frieze Seoul (2023); Singapore Art Museum (2023); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2022); La Trobe Art Institute, Australia (2022); National Gallery Singapore (2020); and ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2019). She was an artist-in-residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2022 and the SEA AiR—Studio Residencies at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands in 2023.
Jury
Daniel Hui
Jury (Student Category)
Daniel Hui is a filmmaker who has directed four feature-length films including Eclipses (Pixel Bunker Award for International New Talent, Doclisboa IFF 2013), Snakeskin (Award of Excellence, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2015, Special Jury Prize, RIDM 2015), Demons (In Competition, Kim Jiseok Award, Busan IFF 2018; Berlinale Forum 2019), and Small Hours of The Night (Rotterdam 2024). As an editor, he has edited award winning films like A Land Imagined by Yeo Siew Hua (Locarno 2018) and Don’t Cry, Butterfly by Duong Dieu Linh (Venice Critics Week 2024). A graduate of the film program in California Institute of the Arts, he is one of the founding members of 13 Little Pictures, a critically acclaimed independent film collective in Singapore.
Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen
Jury (Student Category)
Mark Chua and Lam Li Shuen are a filmmaker and artist duo from Singapore. They met through forming an art rock group and started out making lo-fi underground films as self-taught filmmakers. Over the years of their partnership, they have carved out a cinema of speculative fiction and body horror, exploring existential anxiety, histories and alienation.
Their films have screened at international film festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New Directors/New Films and BFI London Film Festival. In 2021, with their short film A Man Trembles, they were awarded Best Southeast Asian Director at the Singapore International Film Festival. They are currently developing their feature project, Strange Root, which was presented at Rotterdam CineMart 2025 and Berlinale Talents Script Station 2024.
Chua and Lam have also presented 16mm expanded cinema performances in Zurich, Singapore and Taipei, and released multiple albums as the art rock duo ARE.
Sam Chua
Jury (Student Category)
Sam CHUA Weishi is a film producer born and based in Singapore. She most recently produced feature film Pierce by Nelicia Low (Best Director Crystal Globe - Karlovy Vary 2024), and short films At February's End by Mickey Lai (Locarno 2025) and Children's Day by Giselle Lin (Competition, Berlinale 2025). She is currently developing a slate of films as head of production at Singapore-based production company Pōtocol, including Midnight Blue Spring by Giselle Lin (Grand Development prize - Locarno Residency 2023) and Cyberonin by Jared Lee (MIFA 2025). She has trained at EAVE's Ties That Bind, Rotterdam Lab, Full Circle Lab Philippines, Busan Asian Film School and IF/Then Southeast Asia.
Russell Morton
Jury (Student Category)
Russell Morton is a Singaporean filmmaker whose work blends Southeast Asian folklore and ritual with existential themes. His short films—The Forest of Copper Columns (2016), Fish (2019), and Saudade (2020)—have screened at festivals including Fantasia, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Raindance, MOTEL/X, SGIFF, and Jogja-NETPAC. He received the Most Outstanding SEA Director award at the Rolling Youth Film Festival in conjunction with the Busan International Film Festival in 2022.
As a cinematographer, Morton has collaborated on Ang Song Ming’s Recorder Rewrite, Singapore’s entry to the 58th Venice Biennale; Kenneth Dagatan’s In My Mother’s Skin (Sundance Film Festival, 2023); Jow Zhi Wei’s Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Berlinale, 2023); and Petersen Vargas’s Some Nights I Feel Like Walking (Tallinn Black Nights, 2024). He is currently developing his first feature film, Penumbra, which won the Autumn Meeting Arthouse Project prize in 2022.
Nelicia Low
Jury (Student Category)
Writer-director Nelicia Low grew up in Singapore where she represented her country as a National Fencer for 5 years. She retired after the 2010 Asian Games to chase her childhood dream of being a filmmaker. Nelicia received her MFA in Film Directing at Columbia University in New York in 2018. Her debut feature film Pierce is a fencing-based psychological thriller based on her relationship with her autistic brother. It explores the ideals of sibling love and the illusions we project onto those close to us.
Pierce premiered at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2024, where it won the Best Director Award. It went on to screen at Vancouver IFF, Busan IFF, Rome IFF, New York Asian FF, TIFF International Cinema Cafe. It also won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 La Roche Sur Yon IFF and the Andrzej Wajda Krakow Film Award at the 2025 Mastercard OFF Camera IFF. She is managed by the Gotham Group in the US.
Jury
Natalie Khoo
Jury (Open Youth Category)
Natalie Khoo is a filmmaker and programmer based in Singapore with a background in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She programmes for Asian Film Archive and has curated Retrospective: Edward Yang, y2K DreamZ, Orienting Paradise and previously National Gallery. Her own films have screened at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Queer East Film Fest, Sea Shorts, Singapore Short Cuts, among others. She has served on the jury of FFD and Singapore Shorts.
Irfan Kasban
Jury (Open Youth Category)
Irfan Kasban (b. 1987) is a transdisciplinary artist who writes, directs, and designs lighting, sound, set, and multimedia to create intricate universes that celebrate space and time. His diverse curiosity has led him to explore various mediums and genres. In 2020, he was honoured with the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council, Singapore.
As a freelance artist, Irfan collaborates on experimental projects, expanding his practice and perspective. He recently worked on Small Hours of the Night by Daniel Hui, as an actor and production designer. Driven by emotional sincerity and ephemerality, Irfan blurs the boundaries between performance and audience. His current research focuses on art as ritual healing.
Khairullah Rahim
Jury (Open Youth Category)
Khairullah Rahim is a Singapore-based contemporary artist working across installation, objects and time-based media. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University (2023). Working across multiple registers of material and form, Khairullah’s practice examines the entanglements of queerness, POZ resilience, working-class subjectivities, and the decolonisation of botany, with a particular emphasis on strategies of survival and resourcefulness within regimes of surveillance.
Khairullah has undertaken artist residencies at IASPIS (Stockholm), Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg), Facebook (Singapore), Hubei Institute of Fine Arts (Hubei), Taipei Artist Village (Taipei), and YOUKOBO Art Residency Programme (Tokyo). His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Barbican Centre (London), Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (New York), Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (Bangkok), and the National Gallery Singapore, among others. Khairullah is the recipient of the IMPART Award for Visual Arts (2017), and his works are held in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum and the SUNPRIDE Foundation.
Jow Zhi Wei
Jury (Open Youth Category)
Jow Zhi Wei attended Le Fresnoy (France) and LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), and is an alumnus of the Golden Horse Film Academy in 2010. A recipient of the NAC Young Artist Award in 2014, his short films have screened at prestigious film festivals— OUTING (San Sebastián International Film Festival 2010), WAITING (Busan International Film Festival 2010) and AFTER THE WINTER (Cannes Film Festival - Cinéfondation Selection 2013). His debut feature film TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME world premiered at the 2023 Berlinale, in the Generation 14plus competition, before going on to screen at international festivals such as Vancouver, Hong Kong, Taipei Golden Horse and Singapore.
Nicole Midori Woodford
Jury (Open Youth Category)
Nicole Midori Woodford is a film director and writer. Her debut feature film, LAST SHADOW AT FIRST LIGHT, made its world premiere at San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2023. It was nominated for multiple awards at Asian Film Awards, Asia Pacific Screen Awards and won four awards at Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival including the Jury Prize. She is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, Asian Film Academy, Torino Film Lab and Talents Tokyo. Nicole was a recipient of the NAC Young Artist Award in 2020 for her achievements in filmmaking.