The Missing Words
-Drama, Animation
Director: Khalishan LIANG, and
Nurliyana Abdul RAHIM
Country: Singapore
Length: 23mins 09secs
Language: English and Mandarin
Subtitle: English, Japanese
Completed date: 2016
Liang Xuan is a Chinese boy who grew up with his Christian mother in China. When he studied and served National Service in Singapore at a later age, he met his the other half, Yana, a local Muslim girl of mixed heritage. Knowing that their union is forbidden to his parents, Liang hid his relationship with Yana from his parents as much as he could, while his mother made it clear to him that she does not want to see him with her, and follow her faith in God as well. What she did not know is that he already has his own resolve and leans towards Yana’s faith. Also featuring the legendary 'Nasreddin' in the world of stop-motion animation.
Director: Khalishan LIANG, and Nurliyana Abdul RAHIM
Writer: Khalishan LIANG
Producer: Khalishan LIANG, and Nurliyana Abdul RAHIM
DP: Khalishan LIANG
Editor: Khalishan LIANG
Cast: Ying ZHANG, Nurliyana Abdul RAHIM, Khalishan LIANG
Directors's message:
The short film is written based on the filmmakers' real life, and we acted as ourselves in a story where we could not be together all the same time due to our differences, but we can now, happily as a family, and in a film!
Film Festival Awards:
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Cannes Film Festival “Short Film Corner” 2016
About the filmmaker
Self-taught photographer and film-maker. Khalishan Liang has participated and won several awards and recognitions in the photography arena in Singapore.
As a visual story-teller, he began his film career by making short films and music videos. His very first attempt in film-making, the short film 'Bliss (2011)' was nominated for 7 awards at the 3rd Singapore Short Film Awards in 2012. Khalishan also founded Niu Pictures with his wife in 2015, and their latest
effort, 'The Missing Words (2016)' has been selected for 'The Short Film Corner' at Cannes Film Festival 2016, and was given a professional screening at the festival in May 2016.
Yana began her design career in 2005 in the creative field specialising in events, exhibitions, and props. Her stints in the Asian region gave her the
opportunity to learn more about other cultures and heritage.
It was when she met her husband, Khalishan Liang in 2007, she was first exposed to filmmaking because of his avid interest in film and photography.
Since then, she has been supporting him in his filmmaking projects as art director and producer. In “The Missing Words” short film, she took up the debut role as director and actress. She is currently writing her first feature film script, “Mana Ella”
(Finding Ella), a film about a struggling middle/low income family in Singapore who had to put aside everything to search for their runaway family member but end up finding themselves.
