SGIFF’s opening film is all about the mythical elements of South-east Asian folklore

SINGAPORE — For the opening film of the 27th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) this year, audiences will find themselves entrenched in Borneo’s traditional folklore and confronted by the mysteries behind a series of macabre ritual murders that have occurred in an underworld of ancient magic and sinister rituals set in Kuala Lumpur.

Interchange, an Indonesian-Malaysian collaboration, is 56-year-old Malay writer-director Dain Iskandar Said’s follow-up to his successful action drama Bunohan: Return to Murder. The film has been screened to good receptions at Locarno International Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival before coming to Singapore for its Asian premiere at SGIFF.

Explaining the choice of the film, executive director of SGIFF Yuni Hadi explained that they were interested in the film the moment they saw it, even though at the time it didn’t have “its special effects” yet. “Also, the director has a good pedigree for film festivals but he is also interested in exploring such mixed genres which I think reflect the changes happening in South-east Asian cinema.”

Interchange certainly defies genres in bringing elements of a classic detective procedural story and merging it with the fantastical bits of South-east Asian folklore.

Traumatised after witnessing a strange and horrifying murder, forensic photographer Adam, played by rising actor Iedil Putra, has isolated himself from the world, taking photographs of his neighbours to pass time.

However, another murder resembling the one he witnesses brings Detective Man, played with remarkable ease and much needed candour by seasoned TV personality and actor Shaheizy Sam, to his door. The murders multiply and both characters are drain into the investigation that makes them question their own grasp of reality. The mysteriousness of these murders intensifies when Adam befriends an enigmatic woman Iva (played by Indonesian favourite Prisia Nasution) who lives across him, a woman who is in pursuit of a century-old glass negative similar to the ones found at the murder scenes portraying members of an ancient Borneo tribe.

Inspired by century-old photos of Borneo tribal women bathing in a river, trying to cleanse themselves of the contaminating effects of being photographed by European explorers, the film takes the idea into today’s modern context while retaining its mythical elements.

A surprisingly fascinating intermingling of the modern and the supernatural, of film noir and black magic, the film parallels the recent onslaught of mainstream television hits following this path of mixed supernatural genres, such as Netflix’s Stranger Things and Cinemax’s Outcast.

Hadi, 40, noted this trend of mainstream influences among film-makers in the region. “In the film festival circuit, we have seen very serious arthouse films circulating in the film festivals for maybe the last 10 years. However, what we are seeing in recent years are a different group of film-makers who are influenced by all the types of films we watch that are slightly more commercial, and they are wanting to bring those flavours to their country’s cinema, in Malaysia, Cambodia and so on.”

The South-east Asian flavour of the film is its definitive appeal. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) also describes its “rich understanding of regional mythology as making the film something utterly sui generis, reminding us that not everything in our world can be contained within the tidy conceptual confines of technology and civilization”.

“Interchange combines Dain Iskandar Said’s skill for genre story-telling with a distinct South-east Asian flavour to produce a unique thriller that could not have originated from anywhere else,” Hadi added.

The 27th edition of Singapore International Film Festival, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival, runs from Nov 23 to Dec 4. Ticket sales will begin on Oct 28.