Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes has been submitted as Singapore’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th annual Academy Awards.
Stranger Eyes debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival.
The Singapore-Taiwan-France-U.S. co-production stars a Taiwanese ensemble cast featuring legendary actor-director Lee Kang-Sheng, Wu Chien-Ho, Annica Panna, and Vera Chen. Malaysian actor Pete Teo and Singaporean actress Xenia Tan also appear in the film. Fran Borgia is the producer.
Stranger Eyes follows a young couple who receive strange videos while investigating the mysterious disappearance of their baby daughter. They realize that someone has been filming their daily life, including their most intimate moments. The police set up surveillance around their home to catch the voyeur, but tensions within the family rise as secrets unravel under the scrutiny of eyes watching them from all sides.
In an interview with Deadline out of Venice, Yeo said he conceived the idea for Stranger Eyes more than 10 years ago, but he and Borgia hit several “dead ends” with funding.
“We decided that we were going to try something else and pitch different projects, so that’s how A Land Imagined came about,” Yeo told Deadline.
A Land Imagined, Yeo’s second feature, also went on to clinch Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Film Score at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards in 2019.
“After A Land Imagined garnered success, we decided to re-look at Stranger Eyes,” said Yeo. Funding came a lot easier this time around, and Yeo began workshopping Stranger Eyes at several labs from 2016 to 2022, including the Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab, Produire au Sud, and Nipkow Programm.
Last year, Singapore submitted M. Raihan Halim’s La Luna to the Best International Feature Film race. It wasn’t shortlisted.
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