From Singapore, a First

You'll have to pardon the Singaporean director Anthony Chen if he's feeling a bit dazed these days. In May, his film, 'Ilo Ilo,' won the Camera d'Or prize for best first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival. Then Singapore submitted it for the Oscar competition for best foreign-language film. In November, 'Ilo Ilo' won four Golden Horse awards, including best picture and best original screenplay, at the Chinese-speaking world's equivalent of the Oscars. And finally, Variety placed him on its list of 10 directors to watch.

'It's been a surreal six months,' Mr. Chen, 29, said in a telephone interview from Singapore. 'I feel like I'm playing catch up, the film is moving a little too fast for me, and I can only be grateful, because it's been a really special ride, a really surprising journey.'

'Ilo Ilo' is about a young and unruly middle-class, ethnically Chinese boy in Singapore, Jiale, and the Filipino nanny, Teresa, his parents hire to look after him. The film's title refers to Teresa's native province, and the dialogue, Mr. Chen explained, is spoken in 'a myriad of languages, English, Hokkien, Cantonese, Tagalog and Ilonggo, because that is what Singapore is.'

Before writing and shooting 'Ilo Ilo,' Mr. Chen attended film school in Singapore and London and made numerous shorts, several of which also won festival awards. But that scarcely prepared him for the cavalcade of surprises that have accompanied 'Ilo Ilo,' as he explained. Here are excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

'Ilo Ilo' registers as a deeply personal film. What are its origins?

A.

When I graduated from film school in 2010, I knew it was time to finally make a step up to a feature film. I had no real idea what it was going to be, but a lot of childhood memories started to gather in my head. The film really started with one piece of emotion. I remembered that I had a Filipino nanny when I was growing up, that she came when I was 4 years old and left when I was 12. I remembered the moment when I was in the airport and she was going to return to the Philippines for good. I was crying and crying, I couldn't let go, and it was so painful. That piece of emotion struck me quite hard. I thought, 'This is a very complex emotion,' and I was trying to rediscover what that meant.

Q.

The film is set at the time of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. What made you choose then rather than now?

A.

I wanted to paint a very authentic portrait of a family during a very specific period. I didn't want to romanticize the period, I didn't want to have a sense of nostalgia. This is how I remember it - the colors, the textures, the way people spoke, the props, the details. I spent most of my childhood in the '90s, so the '97-'98 Asian financial crisis really had an impact. I remember it quite well, because my dad had a really good job, and he was laid off. He lost his job, and he was never able to find a good job again.

Q.

Were you as much a brat as Jiale is in the film?

A.

I wish I were such a naughty boy. I felt I needed to push the character to its limits. I was more like a goody two-shoes. If anything, I was more the one being bullied than the one bullying others.

Q.

I noticed that in Chinese your film has a different title, one that translates as 'Dad and Mom Aren't at Home.' What is the significance of that?

A.

It relates to the plight of many children in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia, where the parents are so busy at work and haven't had any real time for their kids. You have developed economies where you have a very strong and huge middle class, where you have dual-income families and both parents are busy working in an office most of the time. So the kids are left to the maids, from the Philippines or Indonesia.

Q.

Once the film was out, did you think that the real Auntie Terry might be found?

A.

You know what, they actually found her. When the film won the Camera d'Or, the Filipino media, which is very tabloid-driven and goes gaga over everything, all of a sudden went into a frenzy. What is this Singapore film with this Filipino title? And who is Auntie Terry? So we were on the front page of papers there, and the media contacted me, saying, 'We really want to find her. Do you have some childhood photographs?' So I was thinking, the Philippines is a huge country, you've got 90 million people, there's no way they are going to find her. But they started to run it on the news, on television. Two weeks later I got an email, and they had found her.

Q.

So what was the reunion like?

A.

When we went to see her, she had a blue pouch, like a little handbag, which she said my mom had given her 18 years ago. She kept it ever since, and everywhere she went, she took that pouch with her, and inside were the photographs of us growing up as children in Singapore. When the media first found her, she asked them 'Why are they looking for me? I'm very old now, I can't work anymore.' And they asked her, have you been thinking about them? And she said, 'Every day I have a thousand thoughts of them, but I don't expect they have a single thought of me.' So I have to say, it was very emotional.

Q.

What about outside Asia? Did the response at Cannes surprise you?

A.

To be honest, I was quite worried when I brought the film to Cannes. Because it's a very humble, very delicate film, and I was afraid that all the other films around were very muscular, with strong voices and aesthetics, that they might just overshadow this film. At the premiere I was very moved because I saw that the audience actually responded to the film. It was at that point that I realized this film is not so culturally specific after all. You don't need to be Asian to get this film.

Q.

What are your hopes for the Oscar?

A.

Because this is my first film, I feel like I am doing everything for the first time. I'm sort of learning and growing with the film, and just embracing every stage of it. To be quite honest, I don't know how it works. It would be a great, lovely surprise if it gets a nomination or if it gets close. But I'm not going to feel disappointed if it doesn't, because as a first-time filmmaker, I don't think you can ask for more. It might not happen again.