1056 Metres

Ling needs a kidney. She leaves Malaysia and crosses the 1056 metres long causeway at the border to Singapore to see her younger brother who now lives there to seek this desperate favour. His Singaporean wife is newly pregnant and with a mediocre job as a car mechanic, a high standard of living in Singapore and considerations that come with raising a new family, will her last hope eventually save her?

  • Edwin Ho
    Director
  • Edwin Ho
    Writer
  • Barbara Cigarroa
    Writer
  • Tania Zarak
    Writer
  • Caleb Quek
    Producer
  • Steven Chua
    Producer
  • Pamelyn Chee
    Key Cast
    "Ling"
  • Yuan
    Key Cast
    "Yong"
  • Caitanya Tan
    Key Cast
    "Min"
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    一〇五六米 ( Yi Ling Wu Liu Mi )
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 4, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    40,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Singapore
  • Country of Filming:
    Singapore, United States
  • Language:
    Chinese, English, Malay
  • Shooting Format:
    Arri Alexa
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:39
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Columbia University
  • 43rd Asian American International Film Festival
    New York City
    United States
    August 28, 2020
    World
  • 21st DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival
    Washington DC
    United States
    July 15, 2021
    Official Selection
  • 20th New York Asian Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    August 20, 2021
    New York
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Edwin Ho

Edwin Ho is a Singaporean director now based in New York. He is a recent graduate of the MFA in Film Directing Program from Columbia University. For his undergraduate, he studied Communications majoring in Advertising and Film in Nanyang Technological University Singapore. Prior to the States, he also lived and work in Sweden and Spain. Besides traditional filmmaking, he also creates VR content at a New York based studio. For him, making a film is to create an emotional journey re-lived, through visual storytelling.

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Director Statement

Singaporeans and Malaysians are both familiar with the causeway that runs between the two countries. People commute through it everyday and everyone have their fair share of story about using the causeway, may it be a daily commute, a holiday trip, or a quick midnight supper run across the causeway. I have a deep personal relationship with the causeway. My father passed away on a highway in Malaysia - a heart attack while driving; and I had to travel over the causeway carrying his body back to Singapore in a hearse, definitely a day I would not forget. Since then, I always had the curiosity about the people that passes through this causeway and wonder what their stories are. I began to realize that this is a causeway that connects people and their stories of this two places.

Singapore and Malaysia share very strong similarities - demographics, culture and language. Till today, many of us Singaporeans still have relatives who live in Malaysia, and everyday, we do come in contact with Malaysians who have crossed the border to Singapore. However, there is always an apparent difference between us. This difference can be attributed to our economic status which has affected our values and way of life. 1056 Metres explores this social dynamic through a pair of sibling who is separated by the causeway. Ling, a simple minded woman from a ‘kelong’ (fishing village), who has stayed behind in Malaysia to take care of their mother while Yong, a Malaysian who has come to Singapore in seek of a better job and life and has settled in Singapore with a Singaporean wife. These characters possess simple desires of basic survival instincts, yet beneath these desires, it reveal and reflect layers of human characteristics and behaviour propelled by the different environment they are now in.

There is a perplex reality of Singapore versus Malaysia so for me this material is something personal for me to explore and to discover what I really feel about my identity as a Singaporean Chinese in relation to Malaysia - a country so near, so similar yet vastly different at the same time.