Asian Cinema Fund

ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Script Development Fund

2015 Script Development Fund

LIST Tuition

Category	AFA Project
Project	Tuition
Director	LEI Yuan Bin
Country	Singapore
Director's Profile	LEI Yuan Bin is a founding member of the film collective 13 Little Pictures. He was conferred the Young Artist Award in 2012 by the National Arts Council, Singapore’s highest award for young artists. His directorial debut, White Days, has been praised by film scholar, Professor Gilbert Yeoh to be “one of the rare films in Singapore cinema that invites the viewer to rethink the aesthetics of cinema.” His second feature 03-FLATS was an in-documentary competition at the 2014 Busan International Film Festival. 03-FLATS won the Best ASEAN Documentary Award at 2015 Salaya International Documentary Film Festival. He is an Alumnus of Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Film Academy (AFA) (2008).

Synopsis: Tuition is love story between a 50-year-old woman tuition teacher and her 16-year-old male student. She crosses the boundaries of the student-teacher relationship. One looks for a lover; the other longs for a motherly figure. Can they resist temptation?
She resists falling in love with him because he is only a 16-year-old boy. She struggles with the memory of her late husband who died of cancer two years after their marriage. The film is a study of when growing old meets growing up, which can sometimes be a complementary process. The characters show how maturity is a spiritual rebirth and the claiming back of an innocence lost. In contrast, we see the coming of age of a 16-year-old boy and the loss of his innocence.
Their worlds collide in this forbidden love relationship. Hidden within the confines of their weekly tuition sessions in the year are bittersweet memories. It is a relationship that takes them by surprise, which they both know cannot continue and must end.

Director's Note: A woman’s mid-life crisis, regrets, longings, temptations and morality. Maturity is a spiritual rebirth; you are born anew, you are a child again. It is regaining your lost innocence. However, every child has to lose his innocence and grow up. Her relationship with the 16-year-old boy is like the exchange of energy between children and adults.
The film treats the image as a surface. Despite a naturalistic and realist approach, the feelings and emotions of the characters remain hidden and mysterious. The film does not judge the characters, but presents them as objectively as possible, and also from a distance, a kind of aesthetic and beauty that comes from observing people with a long shot.

LIST