5 Dec – Eight Singaporean directors have emerged as successful recipients among 25 hopefuls to be awarded the inaugural New Talent Feature Grant (NTFG), a new initiative by the Singapore Film Commission (SFC). The winners are first-time feature film directors, which are Ric Aw ("Building Waves"), Abbas Akbar ("Singapooru"), M Raihan Halim ("Banting"), Jason Lai ("Ms J Contemplates Her Choice"), Kesavadas S/O Rajagopal ("A Yellow Bird") and Tan Ai Leng ("Sinema"). The list also included second-time directors Tan Pin Pin ("Hinterland") and Teo Eng Tiong ("The Confinement Nanny"). Each project will receive up to SGD 250,000 to cover production costs. The films range from documentaries, thrillers, romantic comedies and art-house films that featured in various languages including English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and Bengali. Each project is no less than 70 minutes in duration. The NTFG is an initiative by the SFC to support up-and-coming directors. It attracted 25 proposals during the period of 7 May to 31 August this year. The pitch for the grant was presented to a panel of four assessors headed by Man Shu Sam, formerly from MediaCorp, Raintree Pictures. The other assessors are Yvonne Tham (Deputy Chief Executive Officer, National Arts Council), Freddie Yeo (Chief Operating Office, Infinite Studios) and Paolo Bertolin (Programmer, Venice International Film Festival). All eight successful projects have to be produced within a year.