Anniversary News

Found an article on Fridae.com, here

Royston Tan's gay short film Anniversary gets R21 rating

by Sylvia Tan

Gay relationships, sex, orgy and drugs. These are the themes, Anniversary, a new short film by acclaimed Singaporean director Royston Tan and playwright-writer Alfian Sa'at explores. Although potentially controversial, Alfian tells Fridae in an exclusive interview why he thinks a warts-and-all depiction of gay people is needed.

Anniversary, a short film directed by Royston Tan and written by Alfian Sa’at, has been rated R21 without cuts by the censors and will have its premiere at the Love fundraising dinner organised by Action for AIDS (AFA) on Dec 4. 2009. 

The film stars Kelvin Ong as Wai Kit (top pic, left), Shane Mardjuki as Justin (top pic, right), Jae Leung (top of the page, right) and Cheriyan Lydia Natalia.

The 20-min film delves into the lives of Wai Kit, a 23-year-old undergrad who lives with his 27-year-old insurance agent boyfriend, Justin, as they approach their first anniversary with differing expectations and values shaped by their earlier relationship experiences. While Justin is described as being “remarkably idealistic, believing in the virtues of monogamy,” Wai Kit has been “in and out of relationships”. To complicate matters, Justin’s participation at a ‘party-and-play’ session just months before meeting Justin comes back to haunt him.

Commissioned by AFA, the film touches on the issue of ‘chemsex’ where 'sex-enhancing' drugs are used by a certain segment of the gay community. 

Alfian, an acclaimed poet and playwright who is best known for his Asian Boys Trilogy, says the film hopes to “address a certain problem within the gay community.”

“You can go to a local IRC channel, and you'll see how many nicknames have the words 'chem' or 'wild' appended to them. So we thought it's time to bring this into the open, and have a real discussion about it. Because the more you pretend it doesn't exist, the more you grant it an underground status, and then people go into denial mode. 

“And the minute you go into denial, then you start to forget how these things you do in the shadows, in secret, can have such profound consequences on the life that you lead in broad daylight,” he added.

A public screening of the film is being planned for mid-December. To book a seat or receive updates, sign up at anniversary.sg.