Lam Li Shuen, Mark Chua
DirectorsTan Bee Thiam, Looi Wan Ping
ProducersSingapore
CountryLogline
In 11th century Singapore, a yam-born demigod – worshipped and fed on by the islanders – is cast aside when a shipwrecked beast reawakens their lost desires. As obsession spreads and his place fades, he descends into madness, jealousy, and a haunting union with the beast.
Short Synopsis
Singapore, 1024 AD: an isolated island where Akshat, a demigod born from a yam, has been ritually fed on by the villagers, since all animals died at his birth.
When a storm shipwrecks a beast on the island one day, chaos erupts. The people, obsessed with tasting its meat, vow to never eat Akshat again. Facing this loss of place, a jealous hatred grows in Akshat, who clings to the outcast Bidu.
New desires and ecstasies awaken across the island. Inciting rituals to hunt the beast, the villagers find themselves going in circles and turn violent against Akshat.
When traitorous villagers secretly return to Akshat, he sinks into a new delirium. Bidu–increasingly obsessed with the beast–disappears. Enraged, Akshat pursues him and is led to an encounter with the wounded beast. Cruelly torturing it, his jealous rage turns into fetishization. He ends up making love to it and climbing into its wound.
The beast is eventually taken by Srivijayan warriors and leaves the island, Akshat within.
Lam Li Shuen, Mark Chua
LAM Li Shuen and Mark CHUA are a Singaporean filmmaker and artist duo. Among Singapore's most idiosyncratic and provocative filmmakers, they met through forming an art rock group and started out making films as self-taught filmmakers. Following their self-shot and produced debut docu-fiction feature REVOLUTION LAUNDERETTE (2019), they spent the next years making short films to further develop their narrative filmmaking style. Their films have screened at festivals like Rotterdam, New Directors/New Films, BFI London, Tampere and Uppsala. In 2021, with their short film A MAN TREMBLES, they were awarded Best Southeast Asian Director at the Singapore International Film Festival. Over the years of their partnership, they have carved out a cinema of speculative fiction and body horror, exploring existential anxiety, histories and alienation. They are currently developing their second feature, STRANGE ROOT, which was selected for CineMart 2025, Berlinale Talents Script Station 2024 (where Lam is an alumnus), Full Circle Lab Philippines 2024, mylab+@Jogja 2023 and Talents Tokyo 2023. Lam and Chua have also presented 16mm expanded cinema performances in Zurich, Taipei and Singapore, and released multiple albums as the art rock duo ARE.
Tan Bee Thiam
TAN Bee Thiam and LOOI Wan Ping are producers and founding members of 13 Little Pictures, a trailblazing Singapore-based film collective spotlighted by MUBI as “an important voice in the increasingly vibrant world of Southeast Asian cinema.” The collective includes acclaimed filmmakers such as Lei Yuan Bin (I Dream of Singapore, Berlinale 2020), Daniel Hui (Demons, Berlinale 2019), and Yeo Siew Hua (A Land Imagined, Golden Leopard, Locarno 2018). Tan has produced over 10 features; recent credits include Small Hours of the Night (Rotterdam 2024), Demons (Berlinale 2019, Busan 2018), and genre box office hit Revenge of the Pontianak (Netflix). An alumnus of Berlinale Talents, EAVE and Rotterdam Lab, his projects have premiered at Venice, Berlin and Locarno, and are distributed globally via Netflix, Disney+, and MUBI. He executive-produced Stranger Eyes (Venice 2024) and associate-produced Tomorrow Is a Long Time (Berlinale 2023). Upcoming: Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s The Burning Giants (CineMart, Berlin Co-Production Market 2023) and Lam Li Shuen and Mark Chua’s Strange Root (CineMart 2025). Looi is a Berlinale Talents and Busan Asian Film Academy alumnus. His producing credits include Before the Sea Forgets (Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes 2025), Baby Queen (Busan 2022), and Tiong Bahru Social Club (Busan 2020), among others.