On the Block The Substation Film Fest Weekend
These films are a form of silent demonstration.
The country’s landmarks are in peril. Modernist megastructures People’s Park and Golden Mile, structures of post-war aspiration and ideology, are on the chopping block.
In what can only be described as a chronic demolition complex, Singapore has altered its coast-and-sky lines, defaced and rezoned nature, redeveloped living spaces, and torn down inefficient ones—all to feed capitalism’s insatiable appetite.
Like a serpent eating its own tail, the legacies of countless landmarks have been eroded in exchange for upward mobility and tourist theme parks. Are structures with potential capital gain the only ones worth saving?
The films in this block demonstrate how land and infrastructural changes affect people—our psychology, philosophy, and way of life. They remind us that the identity of community is inextricable from its environment. They prove that there is soul in the most concrete of buildings, and beauty in the complexes of dreams they contain.
Featuring the Singapore premieres of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s beauteous and award-winning Aquarius, and a free-and-easy screening of Wang Bing’s nine-hour opus on the collapse of industrialism in China, West of the Tracks.
Season Pass holders also get a limited-edition-super-special-souvenir film kit and a free flow of tortilla chips from our SAD bar.
Visit ontheblock.peatix.com for tickets.
Or citieschange.sg for more info on the films.
#citieschangepeopledie #entheblock
Film schedule
Aquarius [R21/TBC]: 27 July, 7.15 - 10pm
Western [PG13]: 28 July, 4.30 - 6.30pm
Land and Shade [PG]: 28 July, 7.30 - 9pm
*West of the Tracks [PG13/TBC]: 11.30am - 9.15pm
*Wang Bing’s nine-hour opus, West of the Tracks is a free screening.
Guests are welcome to wander in, out, and down… to our new, SAD bar for sustenance.