KUALA LUMPUR: Novelist and theatre activist Ridhwan Saidi's feature film directorial debut No Love For The Young has been selected to compete in the Asian Feature Competition at the upcoming 31st Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF).
The festival will take place at cinemas in the island republic, as well as via online platform, from Nov 26 to Dec 6..
Ridhwan's film which will be screened on Nov 30, is produced by Moka Mocha Ink in collaboration with BinFilem.
No Love For The Young (Tiada Cinta Selama Muda) which explores questions revolving youth and love, started filming at the end of June when Malaysia began its Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO).
With a cast comprising theatre actors and non-actors, it explores the meaning of love through movement-based performances for the camera.
"With no script, the film displays movements and conversations that were devised and improvised collectively and off-the-cuff during filming," Ridhwan said in a press statement today.
"The performers are instinctively paired as couples to communicate stories in the film," he said.
"This film was shot as a response to the times we live in and to further explore human interactions and physical bonding," he said.
Ridhwan, known as a novelist and theatre activist, previously directed many short films, including Sisa Binasa which won first place in the Open Category at FiTA WAVE Short Film Awards 2019.
He is the also backbone to the Ensembel Theater Kaos Nol, a theatre collective he initiated in December 2017.
In the spirit of celebrating collective creativity on a low-budget, No Love For The Young initially participated in Kuman Pictures' Feature Film Challenge competition (2020) and received Special Mention.
SGIFF is one of the oldest and largest film festivals in Singapore, which has since become an attraction to fans of world cinema and Southeast Asian films.
For this year's edition, the festival also includes a line-up of new works by established directors like Naomi Kawase, Hong Sang-soo, Lav Diaz, Tsai Ming-Liang and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.