Shirkers

Shirkers (2018) — watch online on iFILM. Sandi Tan's documentary begins with a teenage plan: shoot an outlaw road movie across Singapore in 1992 with barely any money and no real script. Her American mentor Georges Cardona walked off with every reel of footage, then disappeared entirely.

Two decades later, the 16mm film surfaced. Tan — by then a novelist in Los Angeles — got it back and started asking questions about Georges she had never found real answers to. What she built from the recovered reels is equal parts detective story, coming-of-age portrait of pre-internet Singapore, and a reckoning with what it means to make something and have it taken away. Stream Shirkers (2018) online on iFILM.