JEDDAH: “Singapore Dreaming,” a feature film about a family with big dreams living on a small island, was screened at the 2nd Asian Film Festival being organized by the Asian Consuls General Club on Tuesday night. Directed and written by Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh and produced by Woffles Wu, the film starring Richard Low, Alice Lim and Serene Chen features a poignant yet darkly humorous story about a typical Singaporean family coming to grips with their aspirations.

The 105-minute movie in Mandarin, English and Hokkien, which was released in 2006, weaves a layered and moving tale about the family dealing with losses and ambitions, and the search for what really matters in life. Heavily in debt, patriarch Loh Poh Huat cannot help but feel bitter whenever he has to perform his job as a lawyer’s clerk — seizing goods from the homes of credit card debtors. At the end of his career, and frustrated by the gulf between his middle class dreams and his working class reality, he takes his feelings of failure and envy out on his family. So when Ph Huat surprisingly wins a $2 million lottery, the Lohs start believing that maybe this windfall will deliver them from their struggles. But something happens, which pitches the family into a battle where the stakes are the very meaning of life itself.