Partners
-
Centrul Național al Cinematografiei
-
Goethe-Institut
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- You are here: Home > MARY, MARY, SO CONTRARY
You are here
Online -
Wednesday, November 25, 2020 - 21:00
Written by:
Nelson Yeo
Cinematography:
Nelson Yeo
Editing:
Nelson Yeo
Sound:
Teo Wei Yong
Producer:
Si En Tan
Production:
Widewall Studio
Inspired by one of the fundamental myths of Taoism, Zhuangzi's dream, Mary, Mary, So Contrary splices found footage imagery from various decades and genres of cinema to tell the story of Ma Li, a young woman who spirals into depression after being forced into an arranged marriage, which is signaled by a reoccurring dream with a lamb. Her attempt at escaping her tragic destiny has the opposite effect, however: it opens the gates to a new and dreamlike reality, in which everything and nothing is a dream at the same time. (Flavia Dima, BIEFF 2020)
Director:
NELSON YEO is a Singaporean filmmaker. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking from Nanyang Technological University in 2011. He is an alumn of programmes such as Berlinale Talents Tokyo (2014) and Locarno Filmmakers Academy (2018) and is currently working on his debut feature film.
Contact:
Flavio Armone
Festivals, awards:
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur 2019 / Hamburg Short Film Festival 2020 / Honorable Mention - New Directors/New Films Festival Portugal 2020 / Singapore International Film Festival 2019 / Uppsala Short Film Festival 2020
Nelson Yeo proves his masterly command of intertextuality in Mary Mary, So Contrary: be it the multiple literary references present in the film's script, which traverse entire millennia of history and refer to extremely diverse cultures, be it the multiple cinematic genres and techniques that it touches upon - ranging from Golden Age cinema all the way to 3D animation. But the story of Ma Li and her Looking-Glass universe is so much more than a collage of images, melodies, and narratives - it is the expression of a vision in which any given fact or gesture, no matter how small, has an infinite echo in countless other places. When all of these realities collide, concepts such as identity and memory become unstable - Ma Li turns into Mary, into Zhuangzi, into Hero, into Eurydice, into Carmen, into replicant Rachel of Blade Runner, and so on. The purgatory which her soul enters into is equally a purgatory of infinite meaning. (Flavia Dima, BIEFF 2020)