A 'Plastic Ocean' screening at Tanglin Trust School

More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year. A team of scientists and filmmakers explore its effect on marine ecosystems and human health. Don’t miss this thought-provoking documentary screening at Tanglin Trust School this Friday March 03, 2017

Click here to book tickets for free.

Craig Leeson is an award-winning television presenter and filmmaker. His debut cinematic feature film, “A Plastic Ocean”, which he wrote, directed and executive produced, will be released in cinemas third quarter of 2016. Craig is the CEO of Leeson Media International and Ocean Vista Films and founder of the I Shot Hong Kong Film Festival. He is a television news correspondent, presenter, emcee and public speaker. He began his career as a newspaper journalist before moving to television as a news correspondent and anchor for ABC TV Australia. 

Craig has worked with the world’s major broadcasters including BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, PBS, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Bio Channel, Universal, Al Jazeera and the Seven Network. He began his documentary filmmaking career in 1999 and has won the Asia TV Awards for “Rebel Impasse”, on the Maoist rebels of Nepal; “Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed”, (National Geographic Channel); and a New York Festivals medal for Best International Affairs Documentary on “The fall of President Suharto”. He has produced and directed NGC’s top Asia television programmes and projects including The Making Of A Gala, GeoWatch Asia, the Top 30 Countdown for NGC’s 10th anniversary special and Earth Day promos shot in multiple countries. He produced and directed Asia’s first extreme sports television series - the Action Asia Challenge – and screened it on two networks simultaneously, NGCI and ESPN. He is the first film director to stage a fashion show at the UN headquarters in Geneva. He is committed to charity work, producing successful fundraising films for Room To Read, Operation Smile, The Sovereign Art Foundation and FilmAid. From Tasmania, Craig is a passionate oceans explorer, surfer and diver. He also plays guitar in a published rock band. He is the fourth generation journalist in his family.

Meet the Jury Part 2!

Meet Steve Burton, Executive Vice President HBO Asia. Steve will join us as the second member of our panel for the AAYFF Gala Screening event on 24 March.

““The TV/movie business in Asia is at an incredibly exciting stage, with a significant increase in investment in the region leading to a rapidly expanding eco-system.  The opportunities for people who are passionate about story-telling are better than ever.””

— Steve Burton, Executive Vice President, HBO Asia

Steve Burton leads the financial management and information systems teams in his role as Executive Vice President of HBO Asia.

Wholly owned by HBO (a Time Warner company), HBO Asia reaches 23 territories across Asia with six 24-hour commercial-free subscription movie channels: HBO, HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Hits, Cinemax and Red by HBO. The network also has an internet streaming platform, HBO GO, and a subscription video on demand service, HBO On Demand.

HBO Asia has proprietary and award-winning HBO and HBO Asia Original programmes produced exclusively for HBO viewers. HBO Asia is also the exclusive distributor of BabyFirst and the DreamWorks channel in the region.

Burton joined Singapore-based HBO Asia in 2005 and has been involved in the Pay Television industry for over 25 years, having previously held senior finance roles at Jupiter Telecommunications in Japan, and Telewest Communications in the United Kingdom. 

Meet the Jury Part 1!

We're incredibly excited to announce the first member of our jury panel. Meet CheeK, chief Content Officer At Mediacorp Pte Ltd

A creative professional with over twenty years of experience in entertainment, film and television production in Asia, CheeK has worked on both sides of the desk – as a multiple award winning writer, director and producer and as a senior management executive at major international media companies like MTV Japan and STAR TV. As such he has full understanding of the creative process as well as how to manage the business.

CheeK is currently the Chief Content Officer of MediaCorp Singapore, responsible for driving the content strategy and development for its extensive portfolio of entertainment products across its TV and digital platforms as well as content syndication and on air talent. He was previously the Head of Creative, Content and Marketing for Scripps Networks Interactive, Asia Pacific (Food Network Asia, Asia Food Channel, Travel Channel and HGTV). Prior to joining Scripps, he was a co-founder and the Head of Creative for The Group Entertainment, overseeing all of creative and co-managing the business.

Food is a recurring theme in CheeK’s work both in television and film. This is not surprising as he is a food and wine lover who holds a Diploma in Wines and Spirits (WSET Level 4), Certified Sommelier (CMS level 2) and French Wine Scholar (FWS) qualifications. He also writes about wine and food in Wine & Dine magazine.

His current obsession is with how entertainment content can increase the Happiness Quotient of users/viewers on multiple platforms - especially in the digital space.

““Whether on a smartphone or a Hollywood sound stage, great film-making is all about Story, Stars and Style…
”

— CheeK, CCO, MediaCorp

The AAYFF presents Film Masterclasses with Dan Sully

The AAYFF and the Tanglin Trust Foundation are very excited to announce the visit of Dan Sully, TV Director and filmmaker on the 6 and 7 March. Dan will be putting the Senior film students through their paces as they learn about filmmaking from screenplay to edit, in two days of masterclasses. The sessions will be recorded and shown at a later date via the AAYFF's youtube channel.

Dan Sully is a British filmmaker based in London.  He started his career at MTV making music television and shooting live multi-camera music performance before making the leap into music videos.  He started off making a series of music videos for the independent label Bella Union (Beach House, Howling Bells etc...) and went on to make music videos for many high profile artists such as Elbow, Will Young, Kaiser Chiefs, The Maccabees and Miles Kane.  

 In 2012 he wrote and directed the short film 'The Ellington Kid' which made the front page of reddit, became a Vimeo staff pick and racked up 500k hits in under a week.  ‘Senka’ his second short film was completed in 2015 and is playing film festivals.  He is now developing a couple of feature projects.  He has directed commercials for Nike, Beats, Absolut, McDonalds, Tesco, Nurofen, Ubisoft among many others.

Dan Sully's work in film and photography can be found on his site:

www.dansully.net

Freddie Yeo of Infinite Studios

Freddie Yeo, COO of the incredible Infinite Studios, Singapore popped into Tanglin last week. He had lots of support and ideas for the forthcoming film festival and offered these words of encouragement for all students…

““Whilst technology is important, we also can’t be slaves to it. It’s the combination, with our own human experience and individual stories that will make our storytelling unique. That will ultimately inspire and differentiate us as filmmakers”.
”

— Freddie Yeo, COO, Infinite Studios, Singapore

He was particularly impressed that the AAYFF festival is aimed at students from 10 years old and he’d encourage young students from all across Singapore and the region to start film making – no matter how old!

Infinite Studios is an integrated Media Entertainment and Creative Services company with the vision to become one of Asia's leading producer of Film, TV and Digital Media content for a global audience. 

Wise words for our young filmmakers from Philip Cheah, director of the Singapore International Film Festival

As we make preparations for the very first Across Asia Youth Film Festival, we have been lucky enough to draw on the experience and expertise of our festival partners Disney, HBO Asia and Mediacorp. Another prominent member of the Singapore film community to offer us his wisdom is Philip Cheah, director of the Singapore International Film Festival. Philip was kind enough to write with words of encouragement and some advice about running a film festival. He also had this special message for our young filmmakers.

“If one can assume that the Buddha is within us, then one can also imagine that the film we want to make is also already within us”

— Philip Cheah, film critic

Ten top tips for young Filmmakers!

With six weeks left until the deadline for this year's festival there is still time to come up with an idea and make your film. Here are ten really useful tips to help you. There are also some fantastic online resources available here on the site to support your projects!

Tanglin Trust School's Media Technology department featured on Channel News Asia!

The official opening of the Nixon building was featured on Channel News Asia!