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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAmoeba\u2019s<\/em> title is one of the strangest choices in local cinema, considering an \u2018amoeba\u2019 doesn\u2019t immediately bring to mind Singapore, teenage girls, or anything local. But perhaps that\u2019s exactly the point. \u201cMost of us know amoebas from biology lessons, and it\u2019s kind of weird, kind of gross,\u201d says filmmaker Tan Siyou. \u201cIt\u2019s not a fluffy cloud or Hello Kitty, and I deliberately chose it as a metaphor because it isn\u2019t very approachable, and really captured my feelings growing up as a teenager in Singapore being this strange amorphous blob figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n And in all honesty, there was never any other option for Tan, to the extent she thinks the obsession made her a little delusional. And despite constant pushback from various people in her life, she stood by it, and the idea made its way into the film\u2019s visual identity. \u201cWhen I started making this film, there were just four elements I had in mind: the title, a ghost, a girls\u2019 school, and a gang,\u201d says Tan. \u201cI\u2019m glad to say they all made it in.\u201d<\/p>\n Based in New York, Tan has slowly been building up a portfolio for herself over the years with both commercial work and short films, before finally releasing Amoeba<\/em> as her debut feature. The film, about a group of four students forming a gang to resist authoritarian rules at their all-girls school, premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, before touring the international festival circuit, including a triumphant sold-out Asian premiere at the 36th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) in December. Now, Tan has returned to Singapore for a short homecoming as Amoeba<\/em> receives a wider release from Anticipate Pictures here, and reflects on the film\u2019s origins, her upbringing in Singapore, and the persistence of teenage angst on our sunny island.<\/p>\n When you look at the pristine white uniforms the leads of Amoeba<\/em> don, most Singaporeans would immediately think of a certain girls school director Tan has taken inspiration from. \u201cOf course, I didn\u2019t set out to make a film about a specific school,\u201d says Tan, as she continues to keep the identity of her \u2018Confucian\u2019, all girls alma mater under wraps and declines to formally confirm it. \u201cIf you recognise it in the film, then it\u2019s more of an Easter egg for those who know. But really, this is not a film that\u2019s passing commentary on that particular school, but the Singapore education system, and how there are often such strict rules, and strict rules and immense academic pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n Amoeba<\/em> then goes beyond a film about memory, but a quintessentially reflective Singaporean film that questions and considers ideas of rewarding obedience and discipline, both in school and the greater systems of power. Of course, the film itself was highly inspired by her own experiences back in secondary school, and the trials and tribulations faced along the way. \u201cBack in Sec 1, I suddenly found myself very constrained by the stuffiness of the school and its rules, because there were so many that I didn\u2019t agree with or just didn\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d says Tan, who recalls rules as wild as how teachers would place a 50 cent coin against student watches to measure if it was too big, or police the colour of students\u2019 bras against their white uniform. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of friends told me to just \u2018\u5fcd\u2019 \u2013 to endure; why make noise and make life so difficult? I tried that for a while, but it was really such an isolating experience where I felt like the only one who couldn\u2019t stand what was going on and found it all so absurd,\u201d she continues. \u201cWhen I went up to upper sec, I got placed in a class of \u2018losers\u2019, the sporty class with terrible grades where some teachers would literally tell us we would grow up to be burdens on society. But it was there that I found my people, and met three other \u2018misfits\u2019 who became my best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n Tan remembers the mischief she and her \u2018gang\u2019 would get up to in class, and felt an incredible sense of togetherness that got her through secondary school. \u201cSo my first real heartbreak happened after graduation, where we all went to different schools. We still stayed in touch, and still are, but something shifted after no longer being together 24\/7,\u201d says Tan. \u201cThe film was originally going to be a love letter to that, and started off very autobiographical and personal.\u201d<\/p>\n But something about just didn\u2019t feel right for Tan, and during the pandemic, Tan took the time to reflect, and situate the story within the context of the larger world and systems instead, rewriting it to give it more distance and telling a different story instead. \u201cI started to think about our definitions of success, where we were brought up on this sleepy fishing village turned bustling metropolis story. Somehow along the way, each successive generation of children became imbued with the idea that your path to success was through education and good grades, where you are already aiming for this before your brain even fully develops and you\u2019re just aiming to get the highest marks possible to reach the most \u2018renowned\u2019 schools. That was the story I wanted to tell, to examine these forces and system that shaped young Singaporeans, and question which decisions were really made by us, or by our parents.\u201d<\/p>\n As a teenager, Tan strongly resisted this narrative, deliberately doing the bare minimum to get by and pass her exams, and run away to do her own thing. Looking back, Tan thought about how society itself seemed to forget about the importance of intimacy and friendship, when so much of it revolved around ranking and competition. \u201cThere is so much classification going on all the time, like how you\u2019re separated by ability level to school, to class, and the people you meet and are surrounded by are really pre-determined for you based on your intelligence, and you really wonder how much absolute choice you actually have in anything at all,\u201d says Tan. <\/p>\n \u201cI think rebellion then becomes a natural reaction to all these feelings of fear and uncertainty, this pure act of expression of selfhood and identity, as a means to question and disagree with the status quo. It\u2019s necessary to break from conformity and ask questions about whether you belong in the \u2018official narrative\u2019, and find the bravery to test the boundaries and figure out who you are, something that\u2019s difficult to do alone, but easier to do when you find friends to step out of the box together with.\u201d<\/p>\n Teenage rebellion for Tan then, is not about thoughtless destruction or vandalism or causing harm, but an outlet for the often nebulous teenager as they seek freedom from structures, and agency to discover who they are for themselves. \u201cOne day when you grow up, you don\u2019t want to wake up and think \u2018oh man, what have I actually done for myself and not my parents this entire time?’\u201d says Tan. \u201cThat would be terrifying, because you\u2019d have an identity crisis. So I think such rebellion should be encouraged. It\u2019s something so instinctive, and really feeds the wellspring of being a teen \u2013 to claw your way out of this mould your parents have shaped for you, and you break it by doing the polar opposite as a way to see how far you can go without losing yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n And then there is the ghost. \u201cI was haunted by a ghost in my bedroom as a teenager,\u201d she says matter-of-factly. \u201cThe first time it appeared, I was terrified, and remembering that experience still sends chills down my spine. So of course I told my friends, and they gave me so much advice \u2013 tell the ghost \u2018stop disturbing me!\u2019, use this Catholic chant or this Buddhist sutra, and all kinds of strange tactics. Firstly, it made me realise how important my friends were and how they wholeheartedly believed me, and secondly, the ghost made me question reality. I never saw it, but I felt it, and I became aware of all these undercurrents of emotions that may be invisible, but are very real, as long as we can feel it. So when you see the ghost in the film, I hope I managed to capture that same feeling, and maybe it\u2019s a way of exploring themes of suppression, of the things that shape our desires and anxieties.\u201d <\/p>\n That tension between conformity and selfhood didn\u2019t end with secondary school. It followed Tan into junior college, where things became even harder. By extension, Tan has never felt fully at home in Singapore, her anxieties bubbling to the surface despite loving her family, the food, and the people she surrounds herself with. \u201cThe thought of staying on in Singapore and going to university and finding something very stereotypical and stable was suffocating and stifling for me. During my JC years, I honestly thought the world would be better off if I just disappeared,\u201d says Tan. <\/p>\n Film was what saved Tan, and propelled her into the future. \u201cWhat changed for me was when I started watching movies, all kinds. In Amoeba<\/em>, there\u2019s a character who\u2019s a bit more \u2018atas\u2019 and exposes the girls to new things like film, and it was kind of like that for me,\u201d she adds. \u201cI started to see the possibility of studying overseas, and latched onto the idea, eventually convincing my begrudging parents to let me do it, on the condition I study economics and still put myself on a \u2018stable\u2019 path. I think they also recognised that there would come a point they could no longer \u2018control\u2019 me and let me make decisions for myself.\u201d <\/p>\n Now, Tan is a proud alumna of Berlinale\u2019s Talents Tokyo, Busan\u2019s Asian Film Academy and Universal\u2019s Director Initiative, and studied film and art at Wesleyan University, before going on to a directing fellowship at the American Film Institute. \u201cI honestly wasn\u2019t expecting to end up staying overseas this whole time, but during my first few years, studying econometrics really was just killing me, and I ended up taking time off school after getting into a film programme, and kept at it till I ended up where I am now,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sense of alienation hasn\u2019t left though, it\u2019s still there, but in a different form now,\u201d muses Tan. \u201cSingapore is so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, where people overseas really have no idea what and where Singapore is. I jump for joy when someone says \u2018yes! I\u2019ve been to Singapore!\u2019\u2026then my heart sinks when they say \u2018for a two hour layover at Changi Airport\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone asks me what Singapore is like, I end up feeling very perplexed. I think about all the education system has taught me, and how I\u2019d just be regurgitating the national narrative again if I said all that. All these facts are cherry picked, and I start to wonder how to even start telling these people about the concept of Singapore being not part of China, and instead a relatively well-off country that\u2019s not in poverty that\u2019s part of SOUTHeast Asia, where people are bilingual and well-educated. It\u2019s honestly a lot for someone to take in and process, and I had to constantly explain things over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n Through all this, Tan began to grapple with her identity as a Singaporean abroad, and it was only with this distance did she begin to really define herself \u2013 unlearning certain facts, refusing to put on an accent, to accept that often the Singaporean identity was indeed full of contradictions and confusion, and all that, lumped with her experience in the system, has shaped her into who she is. <\/p>\n \u201cA large part of the loneliness came from how it felt like I didn\u2019t belong anywhere. Sure, I went to Starbucks and sent in letters and typed up ideas just like the countless other people chasing their dreams were, but I thought about how back home, I still hesitate to call myself a \u2018filmmaker\u2019 because people still think it\u2019s not a serious career path, and don\u2019t understand how someone can just become an artist as a life choice,\u201d adds Tan. \u201cSo I\u2019m caught between people who I grew up with who don\u2019t understand my decisions, and the place where I\u2019m based where people don\u2019t know where I come from, and I had to keep asking myself \u2013 was it worth it? To sacrifice time with family, with friends, and still face all these questions and constant uncertainty, constant grinding and working to pay the bills to make films.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think being a filmmaker hinges on being a bit delusional,\u201d says Tan. \u201cI really am a bundle of contradictions, because while I don\u2019t like how Singapore likes to put everyone into a narrow box and definition of success, I think that it\u2019s been hard to find people I\u2019m as close to as my friend group in Singapore. For the Western world, you watch all these films about growing up and there\u2019s so much that revolves around sexual awakenings and discovering who you are, but in Singapore, well, we really just keep studying to pass our exams. Westerners have never been through the \u2018oppression\u2019 of a system like Singapore, and maybe Singaporeans really understand what it\u2019s like to trauma bond with each other. It made me nostalgic for the past, and I kept returning to our halcyon days, these friends who helped me figure out who I was, where we were in our own worlds, and I just wanted to hold onto that feeling as long as I possibly could. Maybe this film was a way of immortalising that, and keeping that feeling eternal.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, the film doesn\u2019t necessarily follow a fixed plot, but rather, tries to mimic the teenage mindscape, deliberately chaotic but tinged with a clear emotional lodging and structure. \u201cThere\u2019s something so absurd about being a teenager isn\u2019t there? Sometimes you think of everything that\u2019s expected of you and you just go, \u2018wah, siao ah\u2019,\u201d says Tan. \u201cI hope the film conveys the strangeness of it all, how unpredictable each day can be, and how it resists adult logic. The film helped me investigate a lot of these, and really come to terms with all these systems of powers that shaped the intimacies of our lives and our relationships with ourselves and each other. The political always feels so foreign and far away, but it has all these very real impacts on our daily lives. And the more aware we become of these mechanisms, the more self-actualised we become to see the world as it is, how we live in the world and how it affects us. And by doing so, we can resist that, resist when things get hard and overwhelming, by seeking out that feeling of youth and reckless abandon again, remembering a time you felt pure joy and exhilaration.\u201d <\/p>\n Starring Ranice Tay, Nicole Lee, Lim Shi-An and Genevieve Tan, Tan muses on how she initially wanted to cast actual teenagers instead of professional actors. \u201cI really did want to cast actual teens in the show, under 20s, but it was limited because sometimes these things I wanted to convey only become apparent when you\u2019re older on hindsight, coupled with how they themselves also had stress about their own school work and parental pressure, and it struck me how they were still going through the same things we did,\u201d she says. \u201cAround the world, there were so many young people who received the film very well, and there were so many young people at the SGIFF screening, when I expected it to be primarily older millennials.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s crazy how ossified the system is, where even the current generation of teenagers still experience similar things my generation did. I think about how now our education system is being exported to other countries and how that\u2019ll affect them; good for producing grades, but where is the emotional aspect, how do we handle the resulting traumas and scars as busy working adults? It takes years and time and space to investigate all these little things, to allow ourselves to smell the roses and take time for ourselves instead of forcing efficiency and productivity all the time. I think today\u2019s youth at least, are more aware of that,\u201d she adds. \u201cI don\u2019t think my film is a dangerous one, despite being R21. It doesn\u2019t provoke, but raises questions, and I think it\u2019s valuable for people to feel seen, heard, and know that they\u2019re not alone in their struggles.\u201d<\/p>\n As for how her own friend group has reacted to the film, Tan is happy to say that all of them loved it. \u201cOne of them is now based in the USA and she brought a lot of friends to a screening, and she told me she just felt so seen, because no other film quite captures the Singapore experience, this modern yet conservative place. Another friend saw it at SGIFF, and she said it was like being in that classroom again, and with all these other old schoolmates, it was the first time they\u2019d seen a film together since secondary school,\u201d says Tan. \u201cI cannot overstate how important cinema has been to me, and continues to be. It invites collective joy and reflection, to sit here with strangers in the dark, feel things together, and as an introvert, I emerge feeling socially charged.\u201d<\/p>\n \n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/sckF5mw.jpeg\")
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