Prominent local producer Jeremy Chua has been appointed as general manager of the Singapore International Film Festival. He takes up the post from Jan. 1, 2024.
Emily J. Hoe, who led the festival for the past four years as its executive director, is stepping down and is understood to be relocating to Australia.
Thong Kay Wee will remain in place as the SGIFF’s programming director.
Chua is the founder of production firm Potocol and is among a small group of Singaporean producers who are using Asia’s burgeoning project market and development labs and dollops of grant in aid funding from Singapore authorities to turn the wealthy Southeast Asian state into a hub for regional co-productions.
Potocol was co-producer of “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” the Vietnamese debut feature that won the best film prize at SGIFF’s closing event on Sunday. Earlier, the film won the Camera d’Or for best first film at the Cannes film festival.
Chua’s other recent credits include “Autobiography,” by Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak and 2021 Bangladesh drama film “Rehana.” Both were their country’s respective Oscar selections. Chua was also an associate producer on Thailand’s “Doi Boy,” Singapore-Japanese co-venture “Last Shadow at First Light” and Bui Thac Chuyen’s “Glorious Ashes,” which was selected as Vietnam’s Oscars contender.
In November, Chua was awarded the FIAPF Award for Outstanding Contribution to Asia Pacific Cinema, at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. “FIAPF acknowledges Jeremy Chua’s bold decisions as a producer, backing a new generation of filmmakers, while collaborating with financial partners and talents from the region to bring audacious stories to the screens as international co-productions thriving on the international circuit,” the organizations said.
