A made-with-Singapore short film has been selected to screen at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival’s independent sidebar event, the Directors’ Fortnight.

Before The Sea Forgets is directed by Vietnamese film-maker Le Ngoc Duy and produced by Singapore production houses 13 Little Pictures and WBSB Films.

The film, set in Vietnam, is a magical realist story of a young man who suspects his lover of infidelity. While searching for a forgotten grave with family secrets, he meets a ghost who forces him to reflect on disturbing truths about his partner.

Singaporeans involved in the film include co-producer Looi Wan Ping and film colourist Eugene Seah.

The short film joins two made-with-Singapore feature films, Renoir and A Useful Ghost, screening at this year’s Cannes, which runs from May 13 to 24 and is held in Cannes, France.

Renoir, co-produced by Singapore-based Akanga Films Asia, is among the 21 films selected for the main competition section from over 2,900 submissions worldwide.

The film, directed by Japanese film-maker Chie Hayakawa, tells the story of Fuki (Yui Suzuki), an 11-year-old girl living with a terminally ill father and a harried working mother.

The film will compete for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest award, along with films from celebrated film-makers such as France’s Julia Ducournau, Scotland’s Lynne Ramsay, Iran’s Jafar Panahi and Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson, both from the United States.

The Singapore-Japan-France-Philippines-Indonesia production is the first film with Singapore participation to enter the main competition since Eric Khoo’s Tamil-language drama My Magic (2008).

In 2007, Singapore film-maker Anthony Chen’s short film Ah Ma (2007) was also selected to compete for the Short Film Palme d’Or, where it won the Special Mention prize.

Also screening at Cannes is the Singapore-Thailand-France film A Useful Ghost, directed by Thai film-maker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. The comedy follows a man whose wife, after dying from dust pollution, returns to the world in the form of a vacuu...