Kirsten Tan

Kirsten Tan considers the completion of her 2017 debut feature film Pop Aye—which she directed and wrote—the achievement she is proudest of, rather than the awards it has reaped. These include being the first Singaporean to win top honours at two major film festivals: the Special Jury Award for Screenwriting at the Sundance Film Festival and the Big Screen Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival that same year.

While she appreciates the accolades, the US-based Singaporean filmmaker’s love for cinema comes first. “As a child growing up in Singapore, cinema was my first portal to a wider world,” she recalled. “It felt like that one friend who would tell me the uncensored truth about the beauty and brutality of the world at large.” As of 2025, she is developing her second feature, Higher, with Ari Aster’s production company Square Peg which produced Hereditary and Midsommar.