Clouds in a Shell – Trailer from JIEKAI LIAO on Vimeo.

Jin is a soldier who often questions why he is serving mandatory military. In a willful feat of escapism, he AWOLed and ran away from service. Yun is a teenage girl who is facing the sudden death of her foster mother. As she juggles between her bitter feelings toward her Foster mother and her new found freedom, she chooses to run away from the place she lived for two years. As the two protagonists deal with their complex situations in the contemporary Singapore Housing estate, their surroundings retreat into a surreal landscape of irony and menace.

Director’s Statement

Clouds in a shell is a film that explores themes of urban solitude, escapism and family. Using an environment that is very familiar to me – that of a Singapore contemporary housing landscape, I attempt to carve out an experience that is at times sinister, and at times nostalgic. By the converging of two stories, I also want to underline that these themes and experiences are universal, even for two strangers who never knew each other.

The story of Jin is semi-autobiographical; as an ex-soldier who served two and a half years of mandatory military service, everyone around me sort of submit to it as a national ritual that all man has to experience, the bitterness suppressed and the unhappiness hidden. Hence Jin’s escapism became an expression of a personal fantasy that is perhaps inherent in many soldiers like him.

Yun’s story grew out of an interest to explore the notion of death, and the complicity of the bitter-sweet struggle between Yun and her foster mother. For me, never having to experience the passing away of a loved one is a fortune and blessing; yet the rivers of time that passes me by seem to countdown towards the possible day when someone I love will die. Yun’s story is for me, perhaps a personal escapism and denial of death.