Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival, Singaporean filmmaker Nelson Yeo’s debut film, Dreaming and Dying, tells the story of three middle-aged friends reuniting for the first time in years. The film stars veteran actors Kelvin Ho, Doreen Toh and Peter Yu – the latter returning to Locarno after playing the lead role in A Land Imagined, which won the festival’s top prize (the Golden Leopard) in 2018. Dreaming and Dying is competing in the Swiss festival’s Cineasti del Presente section, which is dedicated to first and second features.
“The process of making this film is quite different from other films that we have been on,” shared Tan Si En, who co-produced the film with Sophia Sim. “It was shot within a very limited number of days and between each shoot, there was a gap of almost a year.”
There is a strong experimental and adventurous streak running through the film, which was made with a team of around 15 people and just three cast members. “We shot with a minimal budget — almost like making a short film. For co-productions, it takes years to raise financing, so we didn’t want to do it that way.” Tan said. “We couldn’t wait for the funding cycles and this film doesn’t fit into the mold of projects that grants are usually awarded to, like we don’t have a script that is 100 pages long.”
The idea behind Dreaming and Dying first emerged from a short film, titled Dreaming, that the Singapore International Film Festival had commissioned Yeo to make in 2021. A rough outline for the feature film was further workshopped at the First Cut Lab in the Philippines.
Dreaming and Dying is set in lusciously immersive, natural landscapes — a commendable feat, given how the film was completely shot in densely urban Singapore. “We wrote some of the stories according to the locations that we managed to find,” Tan said. “We waited for days that had full moon to shoot some of our scenes. We worked quite well alongside nature, waiting for the cycles of the moon and water. We checked when the tides would move up, depending on what would make sense for the scene. The whole process was quite organic.”
For Tan and Yeo, Dreaming and Dying marks a special project — one where both art and artist grew and flourished together. “Working on this film, I was reminded of why I like making films and being part of collaborations with creatives who take pride in their work and do their best,” Tan said.
In terms of casting, Yeo shared that he had written the screenplay with actress Toh in mind — both had previously worked together on the short film, Here is Not There, which won the Best Singapore Short Film prize at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2020. Toh has worked as a theater actress for more than 30 years, and only recently moved towards acting in films.
“Nelson gave me a lot of space to create my character. There is not much dialogue in this film, so I had to do a lot of homework, create scenarios in my head and draw from my own experiences,” Toh said. “I don’t really look at the monitor or the playback. I have 100 percent trust in Nelson and what he considers as a good take.”
“The challenge for actors is that a lot of the stories happen outside of the film. A lot of their work depends on their own internalization of the material,” Yeo echoed. “I didn’t create a lot of backstories. Through our conversations, the actors figured out their own backstories for the film.”
For Toh, her new adventure as a film actress is a deeply personal journey. “When my father passed away, it was very hard to accept. During that period, it was very difficult for me to act, because I was afraid of going out and meeting people,” shared Toh, who later pulled out of a theater production to work through her grief — the first time she had ever done so. “Till today, I still feel bad as it was the first production that I have ever stopped halfway. As an actor, I have to be truthful to myself and understand why I do things onstage. I stopped for a few years but it’s part of the journey that has brought me to this stage.”
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