Commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), Utter is an annual Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) initiative which showcases the best of Singapore writing and celebrates its potential to be adapted into different media and across languages, giving audiences fresh perspectives and a deeper understanding of our home-grown authors.

In this year’s edition, the written word meets the creative and aesthetic sensibilities of established and emerging animation directors from Singapore. Targeting at literary and film aficionados, Utter 2015: Head Trips also aims to reach out to the general audience through animation’s unique accessibility, with the hope of encouraging greater appreciation for Singapore’s literature and animation.


THE TIGER OF 142B

  • Director: Henry & Harry Zhuang
  • Adaptation: Dave Chua’s short story from the book ‘The Beating and Other Stories’
  • Synopsis: Kevin, an unemployed man in his late twenties, finds communicating with his girlfriend increasingly difficult.  At the same time, a series of mysterious killings suddenly unsettles the people of Block 142B.  Some claim to have seen a roaming tiger at the estate… 

ROUND

  • Director: Samantha Seah
  • Adaptation: Amanda Lee Koe’s three short stories ‘Flamingo Valley’, ‘Carousel’ and ‘The Ballad of Arlene & Nelly’ from the book ‘Ministry of Moral Panic’.
  • Synopsis: Two girls love and hate each other, but they long to be together.  An interviewer sits down with an artist, wanting to find out about his process.  A Malay musician falls in love with a Chinese woman in 1960s Singapore.  Two circling horses connect these three stories together.


THAT FAT CAT, ATE DAD’S HAT

  • Director: Darran Kuah
  • Adaptation: Vanessa Ng’s short story ‘That Fat Cat, Ate Dad’s Hat!’ from the book ‘From the Belly of the Cat’ edited by Stephanie Ye.
  • Synopsis: A modern telling of the nine lives of a cat through its eyes.  Connected by the soul of a single cat in different bodies through different times, the cat remembers its lives in a world run by humans through happy and tragic experiences with its neighbours, both feline and human alike. 

THE GREAT ESCAPE

  • Director: Tan Wei Keong
  • Adaptation: Alfian Sa’at’s poem ‘The Great Escape’ from the book ‘The Invisible Manuscript’.
  • Synopsis: Two friends exist with their olive tree. 

5 SHADES OF SOLITUDE

  • Director: Ang Qing Sheng
  • Adaptation: Chow Teck Seng’s poetry 5种孤寂与静默  ‘5 Colours of Melancholia and Silence’ from the book 你和我的故事 ‘The Story of You and Me’.
  • Synopsis: A man experiences five different shades of solitude – depression, yearning, denial, divergence and boredom – at different times of the day, while he is struck by the fading memory of a girl that once occupied his heart.