Bond Film Graduate Nominated for Best Asian Feature Film

Bond University graduate and filmmaker Kan Lume has been dubbed ‘a filmmaker to watch out for’, after his third feature film, Dreams From a Third World, was nominated for Best Asian Feature Film in Singapore’s prestigious Silver Screen Awards.

The Awards will be the highlight of the 21st Annual Singapore International Film Festival, to be held from 4 – 14 April.

A talented filmmaker who returned to his home country of Singapore after completing his Film and Television degree at Bond University in 2000, Kan Lume has caught the attention of the international film community since taking the leap into independent, narrative filmmaking in 2003.

His debut feature film, The Art of Flirting, was named Best ASEAN Feature at the 2005 Malaysian Video Awards and featured in over a dozen film festivals worldwide, including in Singapore, Belgium, India, Indonesia, Toronto, Norway.

His second feature, SOLOS, part-one of a trilogy exploring human sexuality, was nominated for the Silver Screen Awards at the 2007 Singapore International Film Festival and became the first Singapore film to show at the prestigious AFI (American Film Institute) Los Angeles International Film Festival.

And with Dreams From a Third World being touted as one of the highlights of this year’s festival, there’s no doubt that Kan Lume is one of the most prolific of Singapore’s new generation filmmakers.

“There were moments when I felt like I was doing the impossible by attempting to be a filmmaker in my country,” Kan Lume said.

“But now I feel my belief is validated and all the hard work has paid off,” he said.

Kan Lume reflects on his time living on the Gold Coast and attending Bond University fondly.

“It was a precious time for me. I made many close friends and my love of film was nurtured and given structure,” he said.

“Occasionally, when I need reassurance of my abilities, I look back to my time at Bond where my confidence in this subject was born.”

It was this confidence Kan Lume exuded in his university years that saw him top six of his classes and land a spot on the Dean’s List for Academic Achievement every semester.

But it wasn’t just Bond’s Academics who were impressed with the budding filmmaker.

“In the interview for the first job I applied for, it was my student show reel of films that I made at Bond that my bosses were impressed with, and that got me the job,” Kan Lume said.

That job was Trailer Producer for the Television Corporation of Singapore, which he took up in 2000.

He quickly rose through the ranks and produced several TV programs for Channels 5, 8 and Arts Central, before being talent spotted to direct a short film for Singapore Optical Trade Association.

In 2003 he stepped down from his role as Television Director for Naga Films to pursue his lifelong dream of narrative filmmaking.

Three successful feature films later, Kan Lume is well on the way to a long and successful career in the industry and has his sights set on participating in the crème-de-la-crème of film festivals, Sundance, in “two or three years time”.