Ah Girl Comes Home: Priscilla Ang’s Decade-in-the-Making Debut Opens in Singapore on 19 November

After a year on the festival circuit and three Golden Horse nominations, the 1994-set family drama finally reaches local cinemas.

Ang Geck Geck Priscilla has been living with Ah Girl for more than ten years. The character first appeared in Broken Crayon, her final-year project at NTU’s School of Art, Design and Media, which won Best Short Film at the Singapore Short Film Festival in 2013. Two more shorts followed in 2014, Three Little Pigs and Happy Birthday. Each returned to the same young girl before Ang began writing the feature.

That feature, Ah Girl (《泡泡糖女孩》), had its gala premiere at Capitol Theatre on 2 November. Guest-of-Honour Ms Jane Ittogi, First Lady of Singapore, attended, as did Senior Minister of State Tan Kiat How. The film opens islandwide on Thursday, 19 November.

A child’s-eye view of a family coming apart

The film is set in 1994. Ah Girl is a precocious seven-year-old just starting primary school. Her parents have separated, and she lives in a small flat with her younger sister Ah Tian (5), her taciturn father who works night shifts, and her irritable grandmother. Their mother, needy and unreliable, turns up on weekends with food and toys.

One night, Mum asks Ah Girl to choose to live with her. Ah Girl wants to please her mother but would have to leave her father and sister behind. Over the year that follows, both parents start new relationships, money is tight, and it seems Ah Tian might be sent to live elsewhere. The weight of what comes next hangs over everyone, Ah Girl most of all.

“Everyone was once a child, and everyone has a story of family to tell. This is mine,” says Ang. “I never expected the film to travel so far. In Rotterdam, Hong Kong and Toronto, audiences came up to me after screenings to share their own childhoods, and how the film gave them a sense of healing and reconciliation. Bringing it home to Singapore audiences is the moment I’ve been waiting for.”

The script changed as Ang did. “The script grew together with me,” she says. “Over time, as my maturity and sensibility changed, the script evolved from something very dark into something more hopeful.”

Finding two sisters

The sisters are played by newcomers Ong Xuan Jing and Sydney Wong, chosen from hundreds who auditioned. Casting took about a year across Singapore and Malaysia. Ang shortlisted 12 to 13 first-time child actors, then paired them off to find the two with the best sister chemistry.

Before cameras rolled, the children spent about three months in workshops and one-to-one outings with Ang. She used games rather than asking them to “act”, and her rule on set was that the children’s welfare came before the film. Principal photography ran for 28 days in June 2024, timed to the mid-year school holidays.

One scene cost Ong Xuan Jing more than most. The haircut on screen is real, so it had to work in a single take, and the take in the film is the first. Then seven, she lived with the haircut long after filming and faced comments from classmates back at school.

Mediacorp artistes Carrie Wong and James Seah play the parents in their first leading film roles. Theatre actress Doreen Toh plays the grandmother, and Benjamin Heng also stars.

From Rotterdam to Taipei

Ah Girl world premiered at the 55th International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2026, where it won the Youth Jury Award and was an Official Selection in Bright Future. Its other recognitions this year include:

• Hong Kong International Film Festival (50th): Firebird Award for Best Actress, Young Cinema Competition

• Malaysia International Film Festival (9th): Best Actress (Shared) and New Hope at the Malaysia Golden Global Awards

• Bangkok International Film Festival: Best ASEAN Film and New Voices Award

• Far East Film Festival (29th, Udine) and Toronto International Film Festival (51st): Official Selection

• Singapore International Film Festival (37th) Silver Screen Awards: Best Asian Feature Film, won on 31 October

  
  

At the 63rd Golden Horse Awards, Ang is nominated for Best New Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and Ong Xuan Jing for Best New Performer. Winners will be announced in Taipei on 22 November. The film is one of five Singapore titles that together earned a record 15 nominations this year. According to the release, Ang is the second Singaporean woman in recent years to be nominated for Best New Director.

The release also cites a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.5 out of 10 on Douban.

The film is shot in the 4:3 aspect ratio of 1990s television. IFFR selector Stefan Borsos singled out the “director’s intelligence of using the camera format, height etc” for rendering the world from a child’s limited perspective.

A homecoming for the HDB flat

Much of the film unfolds in an HDB flat. It is the setting where, as the filmmakers put it, most Singapore families begin and where family stories are made. Christopher Shaw of Shaw Organisation, the film’s Singapore distributor, says: “Told through the eyes of a child, its honest, heartwarming story of family, hope and love is one many audiences will recognise, and we are proud to bring it to cinemas across Singapore.”

Ang is not finished with her character. She plans two more films following Ah Girl as a teenager and into adulthood.

Before the release

A preview screening, with director and cast sessions, will be held at Shaw Theatre Lido on 14 November. Ticketing details will be announced later. In the meantime, Nesuto has created a limited-edition Ah Girl Pandan Jagung Cake, inspired by kueh jagung and pandan kaya cake. It is available at Nesuto outlets and online until December 2026, while stocks last.

Ah Girl is produced by Aggregate Films, IFA Media and Kusu Films, with support from IMDA. The project was developed through Golden Horse FPP, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum and Far East in Progress at the Far East Film Festival’s Focus Asia. It is rated PG13 for some coarse language and sexual references, runs 99 minutes, and is in Mandarin, English and Hokkien.

More updates are on Instagram at @ahgirlfilm.