A Yellow Bird

Producer: Jeremy Chua
Country: Singapore
Production Company: Akanga Film Asia
Director: K. Rajagopal
Writer: K. Rajagopal + Jeremy Chua
Format: HD/Color/90min
Genre: Drama

Company and contact details
Akanga Film Asia
35 Kelantan Lane, #02-02
208652 SINGAPORE

Logline 
A man just released from prison is not welcomed home by his mother. Eager to locate his wife and daughter to build a new home, he instead learns that his past actions have led to irreversible tragedy. This empowers him to save his daughter, at any cost to himself.

Synopsis
It is an unwelcome homecoming for Siva, a Singaporean-Indian ex-convict, haunted by a tragedy in his past. Released after eight years behind bars and dejected by his mother’s coldness, he leaves home in search of his ex-wife and daughter. His old friend denies any knowledge of their whereabouts and instead leads him back into crime. Finding him sheltering in ‘void decks’ (the open public access corridors found beneath government-built residential housing in Singapore), the police force him to meet with a social worker; a woman also dealing with her own fears. One night, Siva saves a Chinese prostitute from a violent man. She looks up to him as a kindred spirit in a brutal world, giving him a first chance to rebuild his identity, but she is soon deported back to China. His world comes crashing down still further when he discovers his friend has betrayed him, and has been secretly sheltering Siva’s family in a rented apartment which he uses to store contraband. Siva tries to save them from their plight, as he comes to terms with both salvation and loss.

Akanga Film Asia
Akanga Film Asia is an independent production company created, in 2005 in Singapore, to produce all kinds of arts projects; from film-making and theatre to photography and the performing arts. Our projects aim to create a cultural link between Asia and the rest of the world. The company is led by Fran Borgia, who has produced the debut films of two Singaporean film-makers, Ho Tzu Nyen and Boo Junfeng, both of which premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2009 (Director’s Fortnight) and 2010 (Critics week) respectively. Since 2012, the company has been collaborating with Jeremy Chua to develop and produce several feature film co-productions. A graduate from the Puttnam School of film at Lasalle College of the Arts, Jeremy has worked with The Substation, an independent developmental arts space in Singapore, to co-produce the 2nd Singapore Short Film Awards, 4th Singapore Indie Documentary Festival, 3rd Experimental Film Forum and the World Cinema Series of the Cinémathèque at the National Museum of Singapore.

K. Rajagopal’s body of work deals with themes of ‘the outsider’, and in this story Rajagopal displaces an Indian man, released from prison after an eight-year incarceration, who not only has to adapt to the unfamiliar setting of contemporary Singapore (facing issues of over-population, urban amnesia and xenophobia), but also the prejudices of his loved ones, who have become like strangers. The film aims not only to be a personal story and a universal human drama, but also a critical contemplation of the society that Singapore has become – one which fears ‘the other’. As an Indian, K. Rajagopal is an authentic voice representing minority individuals in a dominantly Chinese community, and these personal reflections add a raw intensity and heartbreaking honesty to the social conditions faced by minorities living on the fringe.