Interview: Siyou Tan – Amoeba (2025)

The official mascot of Singapore represents a visual melting pot of Western and Eastern cultures. The Merlion represents the duality of this city-state. In Amoeba, Siyou Tan‘s vibrant debut, conformity is tested with rebellion — but not the overt acts of spectacle kind, but rather in small, carefully observed ruptures in everyday life. Four teenage girls, newly bound by friendship and shared alienation, carve out a fragile space of freedom within one of the world’s most tightly regulated societies. Singapore allows for no dissension and working in a sort of Sofia Coppola-esque vibe we see how chewing gum, staging irreverent performances, recording camcorder memories and exercising a certain agency buoys into a text about defining and shaping identity.

Part of a new wave of filmmaker voices that includes Yeo Siew and Anthony Chen, on its current film festival journey after world premiering at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, I had the chance to speak to Siyou Tan at the 2025 Marrakech Film Festival where we discussed the film’s chosen aesthetics, nuances in the writing and the idea of pauses, silences, unfinished gestures in this text.