Selected for the Asian Digital Competition at Hong Kong International Film Festival 2009
(World Premiere)

Date: 26 Mar 2009

Time: 10:00 AM - 13:15 PM
venue: Meeting Room 211-212, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre

Date: 29 Mar 2009

Time: 10:30 AM
Code: 29SP3M1
Venue: HK Space Museum Lecture Hall

Date: 05 Apr 2009

Time: 2:30 PM
Code: 05AC4M3
Venue: HK Arts Centre Agnès b. CINEMA!

(Director will be in attendance for all screenings)

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Synopsis

What if suddenly the water supply runs dry in Singapore? This fusion of documentary
and fiction narrative depicts the lives of foreign migrants as an impending water crisis
begins to seep into their lives. With water, or the lack of it, becoming the central motif,
this two-part feature length film takes us on a journey across 8 interweaved stories and
10 languages, as the protagonists, consisting of non-professional actors, grapple with
this hopefully temporary discomfort, amidst their dalliance with human foibles, and their
fantasies of everlasting loves and broken romances. This aberration is a memento mori
as the narratives grazed across the vague impressions of the racial tensions lingering
past the 1997 riots in Indonesia, World War II, ritual beliefs, and ethnic discrimination in
Southeast Asia which has been ingrained over generations and transported along with
the migrant communities. Nonetheless, amidst the sporadic ventures into death and
violence, sexual relations and sexualities, these are the lines of division that bind us to
each other, in one way or another, as people survive through their crises.

Technical Specifications
DROUGHT - 92 mins | Color | with English subtitles
Language: Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Tagalog, Mandarin, German

FLOOD - 92 mins | Color | with English subtitles

Languages: Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Hokkien

Country of production: Singapore, Malaysia

Year of production: 2009
Original Format: HD Video (PAL)
Screening Format: HDCam (PAL) or DigiBeta (PAL)
Website: http://floodinginthetimeofdrought.blogspot.com/

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Little Ironies: Interview with Sherman Ong
What is the inspiration behind FLOOD IN THE TIME OF DROUGHT?
I am from Malaysia and live in Singapore. Water is one of the long-standing issues that
bind the two countries historically and politically. So that became the basis for the film to
explore the little ironies in life. For example, Singapore is an island. With rising sea
levels due to global warming, Singapore will be shrinking and disappearing over time.
Yet, Singapore is a country without enough drinking water to survive on its own. The
same can be said of the population of Singapore. While Singaporeans worry that there
is not enough land for them, the government has a liberal policy to attract even more
foreign migrants to work and live here, citing that as the only way for the country to stay
competitive economically.

In the film, I created this fictitious scenario that water supply had run out in Singapore,
stringing 8 stories about foreign migrants in Singapore in ten different languages, as the
protagonists, consisting of non-professional actors, grapple with this impending
catastrophe. I am interested to understand what bind us to each other as people survive
through their crises.

You managed to coax very natural performances out of some of these actors,
could you talk a bit about the process of your scriptwriting and filming?
I had a rough script in English, which I would rehearse and improvise with the actors in
their own language. The script is only a guide; it has to transform itself during the shoot
as the actors interact with one another in a particular space. I have no problem to
destroy the script in the process of shooting. I don’t really give any specific screen
direction; they have to feel comfortable in their own space before they can give me a
natural performance. It can never be forced out of an actor.

It is a fusion of documentary and fiction. I have my own motivations and ideas of course.
But I didn’t have the final storyline until I meet the people who came for the audition.
Only then can I start to form a structure and flesh out the stories. The stories are real
because they come from the actors themselves. I added in the fictional elements as I

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wrote the script after doing an in-depth interview with them. The audience won’t really
know when the documentary ends and the fiction starts. But that is like life also; some of
us are walking zombies, we only live in our dreams. We may exist but we don’t live.

With non-trained actors, their first two takes are always the best. I don’t go beyond 2
takes for most of my shots. The takes are long so I have to give my actors as much
freedom as they need to feel comfortable. I only pull them back if they are ‘over-the-top’
with their delivery/actions.

I also film them in their own homes for most of the stories. I think that helps a lot with
the negotiation of the own personal space and the body’s memory of that space. They
are also playing the roles with their own family members. I think all of the actors gave
great performances; any awkwardness arises because of the situations that they are in
but their reactions to those situations are always natural, instinctive and very human.

Why ten languages? Wouldn’t the translation be a nightmare?

I didn’t want to use English as the main language because for some of the actors,
English is just a language of convenience and to get things done but it’s not their mother
tongue. When the actors were saying their lines, for some of the languages, I could
roughly tell which part they were acting out, but for some languages like for Hindi, it was
not possible to know exactly what they were saying, so I had to use my instincts, like
when I did HASHI (my debut feature film shot in Japanese) - when you lose the
capability of language, you will have to use your feelings, your instincts and intuition. As
humans, these are the various things we rely on. If you speak a different language, on
the most basic level, you can still be understood, perhaps with great difficulty. It might
be more difficult discussing intellectual things, but there should be no problem with
basic communication.

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Sherman Ong / Director and Scriptwriter

Sherman Ong is a filmmaker, photographer, visual artist and educator. Straddling fiction and
documentary, his films have won awards in Hong Kong, Greece, Italy, Indonesia and Malaysia.
He is an alumnus of the 1st Berlinale Talent Campus 2003 and has exhibited works at
Rotterdam International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Institute
of Contemporary Arts London, International Electronic Art Festival VideoBrasil, the Mori Art
Museum Tokyo, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, and the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, among others.
In 2009, he will be participating in Visual Arts exhibitions in Jakarta, Lithuania and Australia and
will be making a new work for the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Hopefully, he will
also complete his third feature film, BETOK.

More info at www.shermanong.com | http://hashithefilm.blogspot.com |

http://shermanong.blogspot.com | http://floodinginthetimeofdrought.blogspot.com/

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Sherman Ong / Filmography

FLOODING IN THE TIME OF DROUGHT (2009)

Director, Writer

• Selected for the Asian Digital Competition, Hong Kong International Film Festival (2009)
(World Premiere)

HASHI (2008)

Director, Writer

• Nominated for Best Screenplay at the Singapore Film Awards, Singapore International
Film Festival (2009)

• Official selection: Rotterdam International Film Festival (2009), Singapore International

Film Festival (2008)

EXODUS – WANITA YANG BERLARI (2003) (Short film)

Director, Writer, Producer

• Special Jury Prize, 10th Hong Kong Independent Film and Video Awards 2005

• Best Experimental Film, 6th International Panorama of Independent Filmmakers Greece

2004

• Special Jury Prize, Malaysian Video Awards 2004

• Runner's Up Audience Award, Q Film Festival Jakarta, Indonesia 2003

THE GROUND I STAND (2002) (Short film)

Director, Writer, Producer

• Best Documentary, 7th Malaysian Video Awards 2003

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CAST

DROUGHT FLOOD
Sanjay Gautam Sean Lee Puay Yang
Gayatri Devi Mishra Ng Lee Eng
Inder Kocher Rose Marie Lee
Chin Kean Kok
Nathan Boenjamin
Agnes Christina Shin Hye Jung
Kim Yeon Jung
Giovanni Lombardo Shawn Kiyotaka Fukuzaki
Sofia Lombardo Adelyn Leong
Giulio Lombardo Sayid Wijilianto Utomo
Elia Lombardo
Faridah Bte Abdul Hamid Rattanan Channoi
Anke Liebnitz Pacheun Maleipan
Wazini Masmintrachaiyanara
Richel T Hidalgo
Consulta Gian Carlo Xiao Jing
Teresa Cua Zheng Mengtian
Kent Chan

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Crew
Director of Photography Sharon Loh
Camera Assistant Looi Wan Ping
Assistant Director Kent Chan
Art Directors Swee Wee Keong
Publicity Designer Chin Kean Kok, Looi Wan Ping
Set Photographer / Colour Supervisor Catherine Chia
Singing Han Tan
Music Zheng Mengtian
Editor Indra Perkasa, Arief Yudhanto
Colourist Ming An
Online Post Max Chia
Producer Sunny Yong
Director / Screenwriter Sherman Ong

Generously supported by
National Art Council Singapore, Iceberg Design, Singapore Film Commission, Asian Film
Archive

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 Press / Sales Enquiries Contact

In Hong Kong International Film Festival (23 March – 2 April 2009)

Renaissance Kowloon Hotel, Hong Kong
22 Salisbury Road, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon Hong Kong, China

Sherman ONG
Director
shermanong@gmail.com
+65 9388 2813
www.shermanong.com

Bee Thiam TAN

Producer
bthiam@gmail.com
+65 9768 9986 (SG)
+852 6476 4282 (HK: 23 Mar - 2 Apr 2009)
www.13littlepictures.com

Sunny YONG
Producer
sunny@paddypictures.com
+65 9855 8698
www.paddypictures.com
 
 
 

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