Ah Girl took 12 years to become a reality, but it’s a film director Ang Geck Geck Priscilla needed to make for her younger self.
After all, Ah Girl is inspired by her own childhood experiences growing up in Singapore in the 1990s.
Ah Girl is told from the perspective of a seven-year-old girl named Swee Swee (Ong Xuan Jing) as she navigates her parents’ separation. With her little sister Ah Tian (Sydney Wong), the two are shuttled back and forth between living with their needy, unpredictable mother and their temperamental father and grandmother.
“I always believe in telling stories from the deepest part of your heart because it is difficult,” Ang said in an interview ahead of the film’s screening at Toronto International Film Festival on September 16.
“When I was young, the adults would never take me seriously as a child. So, I always felt [this story should be told] from the perspective of the child. That is why I wanted to make this film and empower children.”
For Ang, the journey to making Ah Girl a reality took deep research and personal reflection. For writing inspiration, she says she sought the help of psychologists, but was later encouraged to see a counselor herself to help with her own deep rooted issues tied to her upbringing. After two years of speaking with a therapist, she realized the story she wanted to tell was for her younger self.
“I thought I was writing for my grandma, for my father, for my mother. At the end, it was me looking inwards and writing to the inner child,” she said.
“Through the process, I think I got healed and I grew together with the script.”
Below, Ang shares more about making Ah Girl, working with child actors and telling stories from Singapore.
(Conversation was condensed for length and clarity)
Congratulations on this film. I know writing this triggered old memories for you, but there is a lot of childlike joy and wonder within it too.
For example, simple pleasures like catching spiders during recess. Did this long journey bring about any nostalgia for you?
A lot of the scenes were based on my childhood story. It’s nice to watch scenes from my childhood memory come alive in the film again.
I would say it is 80 per cent based on my childhood memories, and the rest of the 20 percent was what I wanted to say to my parents. If they ever watched it in the cinema, I hope they would think… If they made certain choices, would things turn out differently?
Have your parents seen the film yet?
No, they haven’t seen it. But my father did express that he is very excited to watch it. They don’t really know what the story is about, to be honest. They read a bit from the local newspaper.
You know in a traditional [Asian] family, they don’t really talk about it. They never asked me, “Hey, what is your film about?” They just say, “Oh, when your film is out, please let me know.”
Singapore has gone through a lot of change since the 1990s. What were the challenges of filming in this location to ensure it looked authentic?
The Singapore landscape is always constantly changing really fast. Singapore is all about being productive, and it is always growing. It was actually very hard to find a location that is still in the ‘90s. And to be honest, I had to go to Malaysia, which is our neighbouring country, to look for similar locations. For example, the hospital and the school scenes were shot in Malaysia.
(Photo credit: Aggregate Films and TIFF)
Several films and TV shows that come from Singapore often portray this island as glitzy and ultra-wealthy. But here, we see a girl in a working class family. You portray another side. Was that important to you?
Honestly, I was only concerned about telling a good story and also the emotional truth about [Swee Swee]’s journey. But of course, this element affected how she grew up. That is why we see the other side because she comes from a not so fortunate or wealthy family. But then, this was not intentional, to be honest. It just happened that it was this character who grew up in these surroundings.
There are also three languages spoken in this film: English, Mandarin and Hokkien. How important is language to the authenticity of the story?
Dialects are kind of dying in Singapore because many years ago, the Singapore government kept encouraging us to speak either English or Mandarin for social reasons. There are many types of dialect within the Chinese, but [the government] didn’t want them to be divided.
So growing up with my grandma, you would see her communicating with the adults in dialect. But when speaking with the children, you see her speak in Mandarin because she is not educated and can’t speak English. And in school, the children all communicate in English.
It’s actually very important to show the culture of Singapore. We actually speak many languages. Especially in the ‘90s, there were more languages being communicated. But somehow, now it is actually dying. Maybe it’s the sentimental part of me. I wanted to have those languages exist in the film because I do miss hearing dialect sometimes.
The two child actors in this film are also incredibly natural on screen. Can you tell me about finding those two girls?
Pre-production is actually where you spend the most time on a film before you start shooting. I spent one year casting and I shortlisted 13 young kids. They are all first time actors because I wanted a very raw performance.
Because you and I are both Asian, you have probably seen that a lot of Asians are often quiet in class. I don’t know if that was the case in Toronto where you grew up. But in an Asian country, most Asian kids don’t really answer when called upon by a teacher. I always kept this in my mind. And so, it was very important to have a safe environment and space for the kids to express freely.
So, I did a workshop with the 13 kids to learn about their personalities. And slowly, I eliminated until the final two kids. For about three months after, I spent time with the kids one-to-one without their parents through different excursions so they can trust me. We’d do an activity and put them in scenarios to help build a range of emotions for them related to the script.
(Photo credit: Aggregate Films and TIFF)
It sounds like there was a lot of patience getting the right kids.
But I do love working with kids! I have a lot of patience with kids, not with adults. [Laughs]
Everytime I feel the kids enjoying themselves and learning, and then telling their parents that they want to come back to the workshop, it really makes me feel very happy.
What made the two girls you chose perfect?
For Ah Tian, the moment she came into the audition room, I really fell in love with her! She has this X factor in her that I cannot explain. The moment she came into the room, I would just be laughing and smiling. So I knew I wanted her to be Ah Tian.
Because Ah Girl (used interchangeably with Swee Swee) carries more emotional weight as the main character, I had to go through with the workshop. It was finding someone to pair with Ah Tian, to be honest. For Ong Xuan Jing, I picked her because I was looking for someone that was close to the Ah Girl character. When I was doing the workshop, I was looking for someone to know their personality more and see how they deal with certain situations. Xuan Jing is just very mature for her age, and she is sensitive and sensible at the same time.
I hope they have more opportunities down the line.
I hope so too! I’m actually hoping that Xuan Jing will continue to love acting when she grows up because I am intending to make a trilogy of Ah Girl in her teens and also in her 40s. Hopefully that will be like Boyhood (film directed by Richard Linklater).
Have you always wanted to be a filmmaker?
I’m very excited to answer this question because no one asked me this before! No, I never saw myself as a filmmaker. To be honest, growing up I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I always had an interest in the arts, but I was studying triple science in school. Because in Singapore, if you are in the arts, it means you don’t do well in school. Art is not very popular in Singapore.
It was in university when I finally got to do what I wanted. I actually chose to take film, even though a lot of my peers already had a diploma in film. I was [just] studying for a degree. I thought I would not be a filmmaker to be honest because it was quite difficult to balance my time in university to work and study. So I was like, “Okay, I will get a degree, make my grandparents happy because that is what they wanted.”
But somehow, my professor loved my work so much. Every time I pitched an idea, they would be like, whoa! They are always so impressed. I think because of my professor’s encouragement, I started writing more films. I realized film is such a powerful tool. I can actually help more people with that and find meaning in my life.
That when I told myself maybe this is my calling. I want to become a filmmaker. I never looked back.
What does it mean to present at TIFF?
I was really very happy when I got into Toronto because my film is not like a world or international premiere. My film has screened in many festivals before Toronto, and when they told me they selected my film, it says a lot. I’m very much looking forward to sharing my film with the Toronto audience.
What do you hope the audiences can take away from the film?
We can’t choose our parents. Our childhood might shape us for who we are, but it doesn’t define us. It’s really what we choose to let go and what to look forward to. At the end, I believe we can make our own choices.
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What she says at the end really resonates!