Unearthed

Tell us about yourself and what you do for work!
I’m Natalie, a film programmer and filmmaker—I curate and programme for the Asian Film Archive (AFA), but I also make my own moving image and film work.

That’s cool! How did you get into film programming, especially in a country where there isn’t that strong of a curatorial culture?
My background is actually in archaeology and anthropology. I was in research and excavation for a while, and I realised that I really love material culture and objects. I guess that’s why I love shopping too: they say archaeologists are the best shoppers (laughs).

However, the Southeast Asian archaeology circle is very male-dominated, and I experienced harassment in my early twenties. I left the industry and found my way into film programming because I had already been a filmmaker, so I kind of went full circle.

It sucks that you had to give that interest up, but we’re glad you’re in a more comfortable place now! How did you get into archaeology and anthropology?
I think it’s still a part of my life and feeds into my approach to working in an archive and treating film as material culture too.

For archaeology, I volunteered at The Archaeology Unit at Yusof Ishak Institute, a Southeast Asian focused research institute. It’s no longer in existence but I volunteered for a couple of years and did mainly Southeast Asian excavations in Cambodia, Singapore, and other places, then I went to the UK to focus on archaeology and anthropology.

Did you come back to work in film programming?
I was interning at a couple of museums both in Singapore and in Italy and ended up at the National Gallery where I first did film and media programming.

What a trajectory! Now that you’re curating Asian films in Singapore, how do you strike a balance between personal taste and curating for our local audience?
Yeah, that’s always on my mind—good question (laughs)! Honestly, I think it’s about finding a niche. Once you go deep into something specific, you’ll find your crowd. Recently, we organised a fashion and film event at the AFA, which is where I met Upstairs Garments and got this pair of pants I’m wearing today, and it was so serendipitous, because we found all these wonderful people who love fashion and film just like us.

So how do I strike a balance? I find various niches and try to go deep into them, like little rabbit holes, and then I’ll discover people that tend to gravitate towards these niches as well. But that being said, you have to know your audience. With the AFA, it’s a very varied audience. There are cinephiles who love auteur cinema, there is the crowd more interested in socio-political issues or the historical dimension of films, and then there are people who are more lifestyle-focused and might be from different backgrounds whether art, fashion or literature. So we adopt a transdisciplinary approach, we do expanded cinema, events and other things.

That makes sense! What do you think of the Singaporean appetite for these niche films?
I think there’s definitely an appetite for it. I think when you get excited about something, then others will be too. You find your crowd and audience. I feel like choosing something intentionally and the interest and love (for the film) translates.

Agreed, excitement really can be so contagious. Last question: what do you think is the importance of physically going to the cinema to watch films in this day and age?
It’s a religious experience. Like any kind of spirituality, you have to make time for it, with intentionality and focus, which we don’t usually have in our daily lives, since everything takes just a couple of minutes or seconds. But with the cinema, you give your time, your self, and your space to just be there, and I think that’s something special! Especially for films longer than 120 minutes, I think the cinema is absolutely essential. We did Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour, which is more than 5 hours long, and will continue to devote our screens to slow cinema.