EXCLUSIVE: Singaporean filmmaker Tan Siyou has unveiled the trailer for her debut feature Amoeba, which will world premiere at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Her debut feature follows 16-year-old Choo, who befriends 3 rebellious classmates in their elite all-girls Chinese school. Their urge to resist authoritarian teachers and school doctrines drives them to discover the erased stories of mythical gangsters that ruled the streets of colonial Singapore. They soon decide to form their own gang.
Amoeba is produced by Fran Borgia from Akanga Film Asia, who previously produced Yeo Siew Hua’s Venice competition title Stranger Eyes (2024), as well as Chie Hayakawa’s Cannes competition title Renoir (2025).
Co-producers of Amoeba include Denis Vaslin, Antoine Simkine, Luisa Romeo and Sunhee Han.
Amoeba will premiere in TIFF’s Discovery section on September 9, with Bangkok-based sales agent Diversion securing the film’s rights.
After completing a directing fellowship at the American Film Institute, Tan made short films Cold Cut, which premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight selection last year, as well as Strawberry Cheesecake, which premiered at Locarno, among others.
“This film started from a desire to investigate a story I told myself as a teen — that I was an amoeba,” said Tan. “I was closeted and felt withdrawn from a society that prized conformism above all. The amoeba’s simplicity represented my denial of all the parts of myself that I had to bury, in order to fit into the structure around me. Amoeba is my way of coping with the loss that came with the burial of my identity in teenhood.
“As part of a generation that grew up in a young country that replaced its history with a manufactured narrative, I want to explore how we can create our own stories to counter the narratives imposed upon us. Both as citizens of a small nation, and as individuals in intimate friend groups. In the film, the main character uses a camera to evidence a ghost that has been troubling her. Through that, she discovers treasures and histories buried with the purpose of being forgotten,” added Tan.
