Curious Times features films that are youthful, offbeat, or unclassified.
Curated by Sasha Han, Renee Ng and Daryl Cheong
In a series of fragmented images, extreme close-ups and harried camera movements, Bitter Strength: Sadistic Response Version turns the heavy pixels of PXL2000 into a feverish playground of S&M desire.
Set to the toe-tapping tune of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” and Megadeth’s “These Boots”, a pair of lovers engage in flogging, bootblacking and other BDSM shenanigans.
Azian wants to set a car on fire and film it for a project. To do so, she navigates a web of bureaucracy, application processes and increasingly comical phone calls to make this happen.
A television talk show hosted by Andy Warhol, played by a deadpan Azian Nurudin, brings together impersonators of Jeff Koons, Ilona Staller, Whitney Houston and an art dealer in this parody feature on the state of Pop Art.
A Malaysian woman in America reflects and immerses herself in the colonial erasure of Dayak headhunting practices across history. While doing so, she becomes inspired to seek out a prey of her own.
The last video Azian made was for the now defunct band Binky for their single, “Doomsday Loser”. Four mask-clad singers seize control of their toxic world.
Languid bodies rise and fall. A documentation of the rehearsal process of performance artist and dominatrix, Kristine Ambrosia, at her studio.
Azian confronts the continued practice of genital mutilation through a ritual involving doll burning.
Malaysian Series: 1 Televisyen Di-Atas Dapur
Malaysian Series: 2 Toaster Oven in Armchair
Malaysian Series: 3 Hot Sauce/Sambal Pedas
Malaysian Series: 4 Le Boudoir et la Bicyclette
Malaysian Series: 5 Punishment by Death for the Smuggling of Illegal Narcotics
Malaysian Series: 6 Les Enfants du Paradis
Malaysian Series 1-6 introduces key themes that recur throughout Azian’s work. Each tableau in this series begins with a chapter title (e.g. Malaysian Series: 5 Punishment by Death for the Smuggling of Illegal Narcotics) and features Azian’s enactment of state violence on an object.
At an industrial park, performer Caerage boldly undresses, applies makeup and poses for the camera and the wandering eyes of drivers in container trucks and trains passing by.
Gun kills man. Woman inherits the earth. Armed with guns, germ warfare books and a sleek, two-fingered hand torch, artists Azian Nurudin, Michelle Handelman and Klara Lux hang around shooting ranges and garages, appealing for fellow queer women to “Join the lesbian militia!”.
Shot on PXL2000, a woman secludes herself in the confines of her home and enacts her desires through the intricate patterns and shadows of wayang kulit.
Azian Nurudin is a USA-based artist born on Penang Island, Malaysia. Beginning with her time at the San Francisco Art Institute, she made films and videos in frequent collaboration with insurgent artists later termed the “brat pack”, exploring BDSM, politics and queer sexuality
Sasha Han is a film writer and programmer. She has been part of critics labs in Locarno Film Festival, Far East Film Festival and the Singapore International Film Festival. Her writing has been published by the Asian Film Archive, Documentary Magazine, Film Comment, Literary Hub, MARG1N Magazine, Mekong Review and the Singapore Film Society. She has curated film programmes at Queer East, London and Festival Film Dokumumenter, Indonesia. In 2025, she co-founded CORRESPONDENCE, a film publication based in Singapore.
Renee Ng is a video editor and film programmer based in Singapore. She is enamoured with and loves being overwhelmed by the unending connections that films and cinephilia share with our world. Since 2021, she has curated film programmes for the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), Asian Film Archive (AFA), Queer East Film Festival and Objectifs, and was a participant of the Film Programmer’s Lab in 2024.
Daryl Cheong is a filmmaker, programmer, critic, and community organiser based in Singapore and Southeast Asia. As programmer, he has curated at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), local queer festival Short Circuit, Singapore Film Society, Perspectives Film Festival, and was trained at the Asian Film Archive x Objectifs Film Programmers Lab. As critic, he was Editor-in-Chief of Exposure Print, trained at the Far East Film Festival Campus and SGIFF Youth Jury and Critics Programme, and has been published in MARG1N, Rice Media, Easternkicks, Taiwan News, HK Magazine, Pioneer Road Journal, amongst others. As community organiser, he runs underground microcinema Repeat Offence.
