We Are All Strangers

Official Selection, 2026 Berlin International Film Festival
Singapore submission for Best International Feature Film 2027 Academy Awards

It is 2025, the year of Singapore’s 60th anniversary. Boon Kiat, a restaurateur running a kopitiam (a traditional Southeast Asian coffee shop), and his son Junyang both find themselves pursuing romance. Boon Kiat develops a crush on Bee Hwa, a beer promoter, while Junyang secretly dates Lydia, a model student from a more affluent family. As a series of unexpected incidents unfolds, the four struggle to stay on top of their lives—before life decides things for them.

WE ARE ALL STRANGERS completes filmmaker Anthony Chen’s Growing Up trilogy, following Ilo Ilo (SDAFF ‘13) and Wet Season. Reuniting with regular collaborators including Yeo Yann Yann and Koh Jia Ler, Chen offers an even sharper and crueler reflection on class division and technocracy in an island nation accelerating relentlessly toward the future. The film asks what possibilities remain for ordinary people trying to make a living amid limited resources and financial constraints. When a system fails to deliver what it promises to the people it is meant to serve, what can they do to challenge the status quo? Or are they forced to remain where they are, turning instead to exploiting one another? The film offers no easy answers. Instead, it presents a view of life that never shies away from its complexity or significance.

– Wentao Ma