Introduction: Conflicting Nationalisms

Singapore on screen testifies to the fact that this small nation has both benefited from, and paid the price for, its historical position as the premier port in South East Asia. As the gateway between ‘east’ and ‘west’ and even ‘north’ and ‘south’, the city-state has long been territory to and for the global traffic in people, ideas, images, cultures and capital, including film. Singapore cinema thus has simultaneously local, national and transnational dimensions, similar to the country's multiracial, multicultural, multi-religious and multi-linguistic environments. The inherent contradictions result in considerable complexity. In this chapter we limit our discussion to Singapore cinema of the last two decades or so, a period that coincides with this cinema's revitalisation.