ARI Working Paper Series

The short film form in Southeast Asia is a potent form of cultural production and one that contributes compellingly to the development and continued growth of the region’s moving image culture. This essay provides a preliminary theoretical framework within which to map the intricacies of the short film within Southeast Asia and offers a case study of short film production in Singapore. The essay grapples with the polymorphous and itinerant qualities of the production, distribution, and / or exhibition of short films through the concepts of modes of production, object, text, and / or trace. It identifies and examines two key traces in contemporary Singapore film production: merantau and motley urbanisms.