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18th SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
April 14-30

Some of the longest films will play at this year's 18th Singapore International Film Festival. Leading the list is Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz's new 11-hour-plus epic, Evolution Of A Filipino Family, which follows the life of a family through the turbulent decades of Filipino history. Diaz's previous five-hour epic, Batang West Side, won the Silver Screen Award for Best Asian Feature at the 15th Singapore International Film Festival. Evolution is ranked as the longest feature in South-east Asian cinema history.

Others include Edgar Reitz's Heimat III, which is the third instalment of the life of a German family, also seen against the country's changing history. At six episodes, the film runs over 12 hours. Then there is Jacques Richard's Henry Langlois: The Phantom Of The Cinémathèque, a loving tribute to the man who founded the French Cinémathèque and this clocks in at almost four hours.

This year's sidebar programmes include a large retrospective of veteran Italian director Pupi Avati, including his recent hit A Heart Elsewhere (2003), as well as his well-known films, The House With Laughing Windows (1976), and Christmas Present (1986).

There will also be a significant focus on Vietnam with a tribute to Do Minh Tuan and Luu Trong Ninh. Fans of South-east Asian film will get a good sense of how Vietnamese cinema has changed by following this programme. The award-winning Buffalo Boy by Nguyen-Vo Nghiem-Minh will also be presented.
The festival will showcase over 300 films from 40 countries, highlighting the best cinema from Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Middle East. As with previous years, the event will culminate in the Silver Screen Awards Ceremony which gives prizes to the Best Asian Feature Film and Best Singapore Short Film.

And here's a write-up of the opening film, Steamboy, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo:

OPENING FILM:
STEAMBOY

Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) re-imagines Victorian England for his newest anime effort, which was a decade in the making and co-written with Sadayuki Murai (writer of Millennium Actress). Young Ray Steam comes from a family and tradition of inventors and his grandfather and father's most potent invention is the steamball, which can harness an incredible amount of power within itself. Ray finds himself accosted, attacked and pursued by thieving, conniving men in the United Kingdom as well as the United States. With help from his grandfather and the bratty rich girl, debutante-to-be Scarlett, Ray has to save London from these enemies, robots and a bizarre product of industrialisation called 'Steam Tower'. Visually arresting in its depiction of 19th century Europe, Katsuhiro Otomo's painstaking work over the past decade clearly shows in the minute attention to detail. But as the animation director's previous works have demonstrated, his love of cyberpunk transforms itself here into what he calls "steampunk" (a whole genre of sci-fi writing). This gives a hardness and edge to the worlds he creates and not least, this is reflected in the atmosphere of Steamboy. It aptly captures the progress from industrialisation to the age of nuclear weapons, which is as much a critique of modernity as it is a foreboding portend of things to come in the 21st century. As such, Steamboy is both a stunning adventure epic and an astute commentary on the misuses of power.

Note: Steamboy will be shown on April 14 at 9.15 pm at Lido 1.

Tickets will go on sale from March 18.
Tickets for Opening and Closing Film - $21
Heimat 3 and Evolution Of A Filipino Family - $21
All other films - $8.40

Prices exclude Sistic fee of $1 per ticket

Ticketing: Call Sistic at 6348-5555 or visit www.filmfest.org.sg.
Festival venues: Prince 1, Jade 1 and Jade 2 (all located at Shaw Tower, Beach Road); Singapore History Museum (Riverside Point, Merchant Road) and The Goethe Institut (Winsland House II, Penang Road).