Lee Rui Xuan Chloe
leeruixuanchloe@gmail.com
A Civil Distance
As a Singaporean-born, ethnically Chinese filmmaker, my work focuses on exploring personal identity and hybrid, collective identity, through experimental narratives largely drawing from (auto)biographical content. I believe in the power and value of the individual story of alienation in a capitalist, racialised world. My purpose is to illuminate these stories for perpetuators of the status quo and to provide a sense of the collective for unheard voices. My work often adopts an approach of stream-of-consciousness and recollection-driven storytelling. To see, and feel, from the perspective of the outsider, is to empathise, then recognise, then change.
In A Civil Distance, the hybrid (and/or anglicised) Chinese Singaporean feminine identity is explored in the context of contemporary society wherein Singapore has recently emerged independent from British colonisation (ending in 1959). The film delves into the lasting impacts of colonial-era Orientalism, its contemporary manifestations, and what that means for young Singaporean women in the eyes of the (Western) world, and most importantly, in her own eyes. It strives to imagine, ultimately, a liberated and reclaimed vision of personal and collective identity for the current generation of young Singaporeans.