Summary
- Ang Geck Geck’s Ah Girl won Best Asian Feature Film at the 37th SGIFF.
- The film follows a seven-year-old girl in 1994 Singapore.
- It was originally developed at the Southeast Asian Film Lab in 2015.
- The festival ended with 27 sold-out screenings and a new box-office record.
A film project first developed at the Singapore International Film Festival’s own lab in 2015 returned eleven years later to win the festival’s top prize.
Ah Girl, the debut feature from Ang Geck Geck, won Best Asian Feature Film at the 37th SGIFF Silver Screen Awards on 31 October 2026. The 99-minute film is a Singapore–Malaysia production.
The official trailer released by the Toronto International Film Festival offers a first look at the film’s world.
A family story seen through a child’s eyes
Set in 1994 Singapore, the film follows seven-year-old Swee Swee as she tries to make sense of her parents’ separation. Along with her younger sister, she moves between households while the adults struggle with their own problems, leaving the girls to deal with feelings they are not yet able to put into words.
SGIFF also highlights a distinctive visual decision: the film was shot at a child’s eye level in a 4:3 frame. That restricted perspective becomes part of the storytelling, keeping the audience close to what its young protagonist, played by Ong Xuan Jing, sees and feels.
From the 2015 film lab to the festival’s top prize
Ang Geck Geck developed Ah Girl at the festival’s Southeast Asian Film Lab in 2015. A long journey followed before the project reached completion and international audiences. Earlier in 2026, it had already won the Youth Jury Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
That journey shows why film-development programmes matter beyond festival screening dates. A festival can encounter a project when it is still an idea and welcome it back years later as a finished feature. In Greece, a different but equally relevant route for emerging filmmakers can be seen in the 2026 Drama International Short Film Festival awards, where selected distinctions provide a pathway into the short-film Oscars process.
Other winners and the SGIFF 2026 festival tally
In the short-film competition, Golden Island by Arief Budiman won Best Southeast Asian Short Film, while Singapore God by EXYL took Best Singapore Short Film. Shahrbanoo Sadat won the Asian feature competition’s directing award for No Good Men, and the Special Jury Prize went to Makoto Nagahisa’s Burn.
The 37th Singapore International Film Festival ended on 1 November 2026 after twelve days featuring more than 100 films from over 50 countries. The festival reported 27 sold-out screenings and a fourth consecutive annual box-office record.
What we think
For anyone trying to make a first feature, the most compelling part is not the trophy alone. It is that the festival first encountered this project while it was still in development and welcomed it back eleven years later as a finished film. That is the side of film festivals that can get lost behind the awards-ceremony photographs.
The filmmaking choices are just as interesting. The 4:3 frame and child-height camera position serve the director’s point of view rather than drawing attention to themselves. A story does not need a flashy technical trick to feel personal; it needs a clear idea of whose perspective we are sharing.
The time it took to complete the film is another useful reminder for independent creators: developing a project, finding collaborators and moving into production can take years. A festival that continues to support that path can offer far more than a single night of recognition.
