SINGAPORE — For Ray Pang, the young director of the new film Spring Again which was commissioned by Silver Arts Festival 2016, being involved in the Festival was a venture of passion and fun.

The film is focused on two elderly people enjoying themselves on what seems to be their first date together.

Explaining the approach to his film, Pang said: “This was a passion project, not a commercial project and sometimes it is good to do something fun and give back to the society — that was the spark that started everything. I wanted to something positive and the inspiration came from the common topic of the elderly dealing with dementia. We did not want to go the more depressing route, so we chose a more fun perspective.”

Passion and fun through intergenerational interaction is the key theme for this year’s Silver Arts Festival, organised by the National Arts Council (NAC). Running from Sept 1 to 25, this festival returns for its fifth edition with more than 40 programmes by 80 artists and art groups across diverse ethnic groups, and it is presented over 30 venues across Singapore.

“We realised creativity and talent have nothing to do with age. We found over the years (of organising this festival) that we were able to celebrate talents and even more so this year, we put together a much richer programme of artistic talents,” shared Chua Ai Liang, NAC’s director of arts and communities.

One of the Silver Arts highlights is Kampong Chempedak, presented by The Glowers Drama Group, which was formed in 2003 to engage seniors through the fun of drama and led by veteran actress Catherine Sng. Based on Roget Jenkins’ From the Belly of the Carp, 16 seniors will relieve their memories of former kampong days and perform it in English, Mandarin and various dialects.

Catherine Sng, a senior herself, commented on the impact of this festival on breaking down barriers of age and bringing the focus back to the older generations. “I think the festival and its programmes are good because usually the seniors are asked to tag along with the younger family members to go out but for these activities, it is the reverse. Some of these activities also get the grandchildren to participate with their grandparents and have fun and create something which they can say they did together.”

Aside from the usual Arts on the Move programmes at anchor venue National Library Plaza at Victoria Street held over four weekends and the popular La-Teh La-Kopi series with interactive musical performances in informal settings including a hawker centre, this year’s Silver Arts Festival also returns with the Arts in Eldercare Seminar which was launched two years ago. This year, the seminar is held over two days and features keynote speakers from the United States, Japan and Hong Kong.

“We really wanted to engage people in a way that would enhance their quality of life on a day-to-day basis so this year we organised the seminar which we opened for the first time to international speakers involved in engaging seniors,” Chua shared.

Silver Arts Festival also prides itself on providing seniors with the chance to reconnect with their artistic selves. “Some of them really found their creative sides which were hidden all these years,” Chua pointed out.

This was definitely the case for first-time actress Tina Wah who played the female lead in Spring Again. Along with The Drum by Ler Jiyuan, these two new films were specially commissioned for this edition of the Silver Arts Festival. Along with Kelvin Tong’s Grandma Positioning System and Royston Tan’s Bunga Sayang, these films make up the Silver Films, a curated selection of shorts and features that touch on the issues seniors and the people around them face as they grow older.

“We found that films are a good way of connecting the young and the old. We continue to find young who love to work on themes of seniority and with seniors. They are also inspired by their own parents and I think it creates a very good connection between the young and the more mature generations,” Chua said.