"Filmmaking is kind of an addiction: the moment you fall into it, there is no way to climb out of it." -- Anthony Chen

5 Questions #14: The director of The Breaking Ice, Ilo Ilo, Wet Season and more

Anthony Chen delivers longing like no other filmmaker. It’s not just the characters that have a swoon, a heat, a reach… it inhabits the locations, the sets, the entire environment. He manages to infuse every one of his films with the sort of longing that lingers well past the film ends. The sweetest of sorrows, the happy sad, satisfying to never have had. Since winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes for his first feature, he has put together a series of films that develop a unique quiet wallop, perfectly modulated but powerful, organic yet inevitable. His latest is a turn on the Jules And Jim love triangle. And it does not disappoint. It is Singapore’s nominee for the Best International Film Oscar and will open theatrically this week in the United States.

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What do you love about cinema?

That cinema never fails to inspire, surprise and invigorate me. It is probably the most emotional of all media. And is it not amazing that we can remember key moments from specific films, that there is an emotional resonance that even allows us to recall where we saw these films and the people we saw them with.

I remember very well my first experience of seeing a film on the big screen. And movie theaters used to be massive at that time, they had 800-1000 seats, this was before the time of multiplexes. The film was Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, and I was only four. Until today, I was baffled why my parents took me. It certainly was not a film for a child of that age. I was pretty sure I dozed off at some point as the film was close to three hours, but there were scenes that stayed with me for many years later.

Several months ago, I was in Poland to screen my film at the Warsaw Film Festival. Somehow, I was worn out by fatigue by the back-to-back traveling, and was feeling quite low. I remember getting up in the morning and looking through the programme of films at the festival. And instead of choosing to see any of the new contemporary films, I decided to spend the day watching the early films of Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. I had seen EO the previous year and some of his work from the later years, but I had never seen his early work from the 1960s, films such as Barrier, Hands Up, Walkover, Identification Marks: None. I was absolutely blown away. Skolimowki’s cinema rejuvenated me. It was visceral and dynamic, like how I experienced the Nouvelle Vague the first time. I came out energized, I was skipping down the street.

For me personally, cinema has a healing power. Every time I feel down and out, it's the experience of the big screen that has always cured me. It's worked time and again.

How do you consistently grow & change & evolve as an artist? (I.e. how not to get stagnant or jaded)

I worry about this a lot. My biggest fear ever is to stop growing as a filmmaker, to rest on my laurels and be in self-repeat mode.

Hence, I always force myself to always try new things and new ways. I’m from Singapore and I have to say it is not a Singaporean thing to take big risk, to veer into uncharted waters. Yet I won’t be satisfied if I just end up on a plateau. So, I’m always looking for something new as I develop my next film — it might be the subject matter, or the aesthetic, or the storytelling structure. There is something though that I know will always stay constant, my sensibility. Thus, it is about putting this sensibility into different canvases, with different paints and materials.

One way that has worked for me too is to produce. Producing other filmmakers has allowed me to see things in a different perspective, to observe their decisions, choices, and approaches. I especially learn a lot from the mistakes of others. This has allowed me to grow continuously.

Can you generate inspiration? What do you do to spark it (or try to)?

This is a question I have pondered about incessantly. And for the longest time I have always thought that inspiration demands patience, and you just need to wait for that creative cloud to come by.

Long showers have been a real source of inspiration, though. Some of my best ideas have come from the bathroom, where ideas spark as running water falls upon one’s head. Not so friendly to the environment of course. By the way, I have tried with baths. Somehow, it doesn’t quite work the same way showers do.

These days, I have decided to take a more active approach. Hence, at my production company, we began to tackle the issue head on, setting aside proper time for brainstorming meetings, forcing everyone to think aloud and just throw up ideas. Some great things have emerged out of these sessions so far.

What would you do differently if you were starting out today?

Not be a filmmaker at all? If I had a chance to give my younger self some advice?

It really is just too tough. And one suffers from constant self-doubt and anxiety. But I guess that’s not possible. Filmmaking is kind of an addiction, the moment you fall into it, there is no way to climb out of it.

However, if I was starting out today, I will learn to make my films on a micro-budget. Build up a team and process that frees all of us financially and artistically. I think films are getting too expensive to make these days. And the math simply does not add up. And I am in a trajectory where it is harder and harder to make films cheaply. This is a dilemma where I’m still in the process of figuring out. I don’t foresee having answers soon, and they won’t be easy ones. 

What did you learn about filmmaking, life, art, and yourself from one of your movies?

I had a huge existential crisis during the pandemic. I was desperate to make a film after two years of being cooped up at home. I felt stuck and I needed to unstick myself. So, when certain projects got delayed, I was determined to make something. I was searching for a sense of identity, to “exist” as a filmmaker.

And that led to me making THE BREAKING ICE, and I learnt so much from making this work. You could say it was born out of impulse and spontaneity.

The whole process was different from how I made my other films. It wasn't conventional at all. I was looking to liberate myself from my old ways, and to challenge myself outside my comfort zone.

It was very much about embracing change, about trying to break the mould of my work and the process of it. It was both nerve-wrecking and exciting at the same time. For the first time, I wasn’t pre-judging and setting so many things in stone. Many elements in the film were inspired by the things I observed during my scouting in the north of China. I kept my eyes and mind wide open, and allowed what I was seeing and feeling to inform the creation of the work.

We had no script when I decided to embark on this crazy endeavor. And ironically, this freedom also came from setting up a list of restrictions. I forced myself to make this film in an unfamiliar country, terrain, and climate. We locked down a shooting window before I have figured out what story we were actually making.

It felt like an adventure, albeit a risky one. I wanted to make a film about the current generation of young people in China, and a sense of spiritual freedom that they are all seeking. In a way, the approach I took to execute this film was as freeing as the themes I was exploring. It was a leap of faith for all of us. A wild adventure in a cold, icy winter.

I am Aries. A real control freak. Losing control is something I fear. The biggest lesson from this journey is that in order to find new things, you need to learn to let go, to put down other things. I guess this does not just apply to filmmaking or art for that matter, but even life itself.

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The Breaking Ice opens Friday, January 19th at the IFC Center in NYC.

You can order tickets and check show times here.

In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China’s northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.

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Anthony Chen is an award-winning writer, director and producer from Singapore.

Anthony Chen became the first Singaporean to be awarded at Cannes with short film AH MA in 2007. His debut feature ILO ILO (2013) was awarded the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by 40 awards internationally including 4 Golden Horse Awards.

His sophomore film WET SEASON (2019) was nominated for the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. Both films are Singapore's official submissions for the Academy Awards.

In 2021, he contributed a short to the anthology film THE YEAR OF THE EVERLASTING STORM, which premiered at Cannes.

DRIFT, starring Oscar Best Actress nominee Cynthia Erivo, marked his English-language debut and premiered at Sundance in 2023.

THE BREAKING ICE is his first Chinese-language film made in China and premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes the same year. The film was once again the official Singapore submission to the Oscars.

As producer, he produces out of his Giraffe Pictures outfit based in Singapore. Apart from his own films, produced films include Singapore filmmaker Kirsten Tan’s POP AYE (2017) which won at Sundance, He Shuming’s feature debut AJOOMMA (2022) which premiered in competition at Busan and Thai director Sorayos Prapapan’s debut feature ARNOLD IS A MODEL STUDENT (2022), which competed at Locarno.