Singapore’s Nicole Midori Woodford On Hauntings & Echoes Of Trauma In ‘Last Shadow At First Light’ – APSAs

Singaporean writer-director Nicole Midori Woodford is on a roll with her debut feature, Last Shadow At First Light, which premiered in New Directors at San Sebastian film festival and has two nominations at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSAs) for best screenplay and best performance (Mihaya Shirata). 

Filmed in Singapore and Japan, the film follows a Singaporean teenage girl with a special connection to the spiritual world who goes on a road trip to uncover the mystery of her Japanese mother’s supposed death. She has been told her mother died by suicide during the recovery effort following the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed her maternal grandparents. But she doesn’t believe this to be true. 

Meeting up with an uncle in Tokyo, they travel together to a town that was swept away by the tsunami although her uncle is more interested in the local pachinko parlour than helping with the quest. A series of ghostly encounters then forces both of them to face the trauma that this disaster has left imprinted on their lives. 

Produced by Singapore’s Potocol, Japan’s Cogitoworks and Slovenia’s Studio Virc, the film also has co-producers from the Philippines and Indonesia. Lead producers include Singapore’s Jeremy Chua, Japan’s Shozo Ichiyama and Slovenia’s Bostjan Virc. 

Mihaya Shirata plays the young girl while Masatoshi Nagase, who starred in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, plays the uncle and Mariko Tsutsui (Harmonium) and Peter Yu (A Land Imagined) round out the cast. The film was shot by Singapore-based Japanese cinematographer Hideho Urata (A Land Imagined, Plan 75).

Midori Woodford has made previously made short films that competed at festivals including Busan, Clermont-Ferrand and Singapore. She has also worked for Eric Khoo’s Singapore-based Zhao Wei Films and directed an episode of HBO Asia anthology series Folklore Season 2, produced by Khoo. 

Since San Sebastian, Last Shadow At First Light has also screened at Filmfest Hamburg and China’s Pingyao International Film Festival and is now heading for Tokyo Filmex, QCinema in the Philippines, Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival in Indonesia and Singapore International Film Festival. 

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