A Tepee Sits Down – Short Film

We're a group of 8 NTU-ADM students trying to raise funds for our short film - A Tepee Sits Down.

About the Director

It took me at least 15 years to own up to myself that what I really liked, always liked, was stories (and more specifically, movies). My fondest childhood memories were spent with my grandfather, watching Chaplin movies, reading fairy tales in Chinese and looking at digital albums of oil paintings. At 21, I’m finally a film and arts student, but I still feel stuck.

I often wonder when the breakthrough will come. The one where I finally stand up and declare myself an artist, an adult. Maybe it’s part of the creative dilemma that I should always remain partly a child, to preserve that childish wonder at the world. If a fantasy comes true, is it a fantasy anymore?

The label ‘artist’ is a strange one to put on myself, but I try to own it. Especially as I work through my memories and childhood to create something new. Part of what keeps me going is that dream of growing up ‘one day’. I use it to tell stories about myself, about people I know and love, and I hope whoever hears these stories remembers what it’s like to be a curious child.

The Story

A Tepee Sits Down centers around a Girl and an Impresario who swindle their neighbourhood with false prophecies and rituals. They endure a difficult relationship in which the Girl is without control. Her only haven is the act of lying: prophecies she whispers to clients that the Impresario is forced to physically re-enact. Wielding her words, she speaks a final prophecy that will wreak havoc on the Impresario should he obey it. Stuck in an impossibility, the two are forced to confront their relationship and their desire for and to hurt one another.

I’ve incorporated many emotions from my own life into this story. It carries my love for storytelling, but also a feeling of being trapped by my own life. The Girl and Impresario are characters that try to break away from what they are told to be, but whether or not they succeed is something yet to be seen.

About the Team

As all of us hail from different backgrounds and different disciplines within the film world, and we hope to come together to create something new, something of our own. A Tepee Sits Down while fictional, carries with it many themes that we relate to, the uncertainty of our future, the bonds that hold us, trying to make our own way in this world. We hope to tell this story for ourselves as well as for others and if you (the reader) should feel compelled as you come across our project, we would greatly appreciate any support, no matter how big or small, to help us with our project. Thank you for being a part of this story, our story.