Sister

I woke up this morning to Yeewei‘s text – the story is out. Reading the Sunday Times article, Death Row’s Angel Of Hope, I remembered the meeting with Dr Sudha Nair and a social worker on the year-end parties for the PAVE children. Before leaving, Sudha said she would send me a copy of Alan John’s Unholy Trinity: The Adrian Lim ‘Ritual’ Child Killings. As a filmmaker, she thought I would be interested in Sister Gerard. I didn’t think much of it until the book arrived. Slowly, but surely, I saw this as a story Yeewei may be interested for #15shorts. I was not wrong. But Yeewei more than read the book. He started researching. So when the arranged meeting between him and Alan happened, there was a spark that signalled signs of not just a good film, but a great film in the making.

Alan arranged for the director to meet with his subject, the revered Sister Gerard. The meeting went as well as it could. It was then left to the director’s attention to every detail, from casting, location to his relentless study into the back stories of all the characters in his film. The elephant in the room, Adrian Lim, was moved to the side. It became the story of a local pioneer in death row missionary work. Religious sensitivities in the narration were faced head on with sensitivity, and the Chai Yee Wei trademark boldness is kept intact. Sister Gerard cleared the script, but she only saw the actual film on the day of the launch, with invited guests. Thank you, Yeewei, for this most cinematic and moving short film. And NVPC. Be among the first to watch ‘Sister’ by clicking on this link – https://youtu.be/hAITaCBtwHU