Teen misfit to Golden Horse winner: How Singapore’s Tan Siyou turned rebellion into new film Amoeba

Explore Tan Siyou's journey making 'Amoeba', a Singaporean film about teenage misfits, which won awards at the Golden Horse Festival. Read more at straitstimes.com.

SINGAPORE - A rule in storytelling is to write what you know, so Tan Siyou chose to make her first feature film based on what she knew: life as a teenage misfit.

The United States-based Singaporean writer-director, who is in her 30s, says that her report slips contained words such as “poor”, “lazy” or “never applies herself” in the conduct section.

At her top-ranked all-girls secondary school which she declines to name, she says she became a target for disciplinary action, unlike her more well-behaved classmates who embodied the institution’s Confucian values that taught that girls ought to be demure and obedient.

Respectful girls did not slouch, but she did it anyway, she tells The Straits Times in an interview at a Luckin Coffee outlet at Junction 8 mall on March 4.

“I looked like I was asleep in class, but I’m listening, I’m paying attention, it’s just that my head is down,” she says.

Those experiences and others, such as forming a tight friend group, are in Amoeba, a coming-of-age drama that Tan wrote and directed. It opens in Singapore cinemas on March 26.