Temasek Poly students' films at S’pore Discovery Centre
As a newborn, Miss Grace Tay was sold to another family to pay off her mother's gambling debt.
More than two decades later, the 21-year-old has turned her story into a short film titled Buying Back Grace.
Set in the 1980s, the true story of fatherly love, forgiveness and resilience charts Miss Tay's dad's desperate journey to reclaim his baby.
Buying Back Grace is one of three short films commissioned by S'pore Discovery Centre (SDC) in collaboration with the Temasek Polytechnic (TP) School of Design for the Singapore Stories Film Gala, which showcases short films produced by the graduating cohort of TP students from the digital film and television diploma course.
Miss Tay, who directed Buying Back Grace, found out about her past after an argument with her parents over her phone bill.
Her elder sister came into the room and tried to console her, eventually revealing the secret.
Miss Tay told The New Paper: "I thought it was a joke at first. I didn't realise how much my parents had sacrificed for me before she told me the lengths my dad went to, to get me back."
Another film inspired by heartwarming real events is Sleep Well, Mother.
Miss Li Su Min, 20, its sound recordist and scriptwriter, recalled how in the middle of her film pitch to her lecturers, she received a call from the police informing her that her younger brother Li Su Yuan, 17, who has Down syndrome, had made nuisance calls to them.
The film's protagonist Damien, played by Su Yuan, is fined for doing that, but is later determined to learn life skills in a bid to be independent and do his cancer-stricken mother proud.
Its director Miss Lew Kee Wen, 20, hopes the film can help raise awareness for Down syndrome sufferers.
The third TP film is the Bollywood-inspired dramedy-fantasy-musical Meri Jaane Jaan (O My Beloved).
All three films are being exclusively screened over one year at SDC's iWERKS Theatre. Admission is free.
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