Photo Courtesy of: Giraffe Pictures

Singaporean director Kirsten Tan’s debut feature-length film POP AYE premiered today to a full-house crowd at the Egyptian Theatre at Park City, Utah. The film opened the World Cinema Dramatic Competition on the first day of the 2017 edition of the Sundance Film Festival.
 
Attended by Director Kirsten Tan, Executive Producer Anthony Chen, Producers Lai Weijie and Huang Wenhong, the premiere marked the first time a Singapore film has competed at the prestigious American festival. All five sessions of POP AYE at Sundance were sold out before the festival even began. 

POP AYE played to a hall filled with laughter and excitement with several audience members moved to tears. The film ended with an engaging question and answer session, with the director sharing insightful anecdotes about the inspiration behind and the process of making the film. 

“I am still completely overwhelmed by the reception and the reactions to the film. It was snowing really hard at Park City but I felt a genuine warmth from the Sundance audience. This has exceeded my expectations. I look forward to sharing the film with more audiences in the week ahead,” said Kirsten. 

 

Photo Courtesy of: Giraffe Pictures


Early reviews from the trades were overwhelmingly encouraging and positive. 

“Warm yet unsentimental, graced with the lightest touch of surrealism, this opening-night offering from Sundance’s world cinema dramatic competition is a joy for patient viewers” Maggie Lee, Variety 

“The hometown-bound peregrinations through Thailand of a city man and his elephant make for a tender and sharply etched journey in PopAye. Loneliness, alienation, the ache of nostalgia and the everyday absurdity of life infuse every encounter in the unconventional road trip. Like the journey it depicts, the first feature by New York-based, Singapore-raised writer-director Kirsten Tan is unhurried and unforgettable” Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter