Film still: Saam Sing 三星 (2024), Eelyn Lee (courtesy of the artist)
Film still: The Song of My Life (2020), Sadia Pineda Hameed (courtesy of the artist)
Venues:
Rich Mix, London
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
Festival:
Queer East Festival, London
Also presented as part of Queer East On the Road 2025, a nationwide touring season taking place from October to December 2025 across 15 cities in the UK.
Queer East is a cross-disciplinary festival showcasing boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema, live arts, and moving image work from East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities.
Artists:
Bones Tan Jones, Eelyn Lee, Sadia Pineda Hameed, susan pui san lok, Tianhui Wu
A Sword, A Spectre, A Song invites viewers into a space where ancestry and diasporic memory shape how stories are told. The programme brings together films that reimagine East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) identities through personal histories, myth, and experimentation. Across the works, karaoke, ghosts, and neo-mythical figures become ways of thinking through belonging, inheritance, and survival. Together, the films offer a space to sit with the past, attend to what lingers, and imagine what might still be possible.
Programme:
Grandchildren
A celebration of queer community, challenging binaries and hetero-patriarchy through dance, spell-casting, and imaginative storytelling.
Dir. Bones Tan Jones (YaYa Bones), Jade Ang Jackman | UK | 2018 | 5 min
Saam Sing 三星
A reimagining of ESEA identities through neo-mythical characters, blending ancestral stories to challenge stereotypes and redefine Asian and British identities.
Dir. Eelyn Lee | UK | 2024 | 8 min
The Land Where Ghosts Could Speak
By unearthing buried memories, the tension between personal recollection and generational silence is revealed.
Dir. Tianhui Wu | UK | 2024 | 14 min
The Song of My Life
Karaoke-style video that layers familial trauma with matrilineal storytelling.
Dir. Sadia Pineda Hameed | UK | 2020 | 10 min
Trailers (RoCH Fans and Legends)
Martial arts fights unfold in suburban streets and mythical landscapes, blending Google Street View with memory to explore diasporic place-making.
Dir. susan pui san lok | UK | 2015 | 4 min
Events
The Nottingham screening was followed by a post-screening conversation with Eelyn Lee (Saam Sing 三星) and curator Wingshan, before closing with a guided meditation led by Wingshan.
The London screening was followed by a post-screening conversation with Bones Tan Jones and curator Wingshan, and concluded with a guided meditation led by Wingshan.
Curatorial Reflections PDF Download
Film still: Grandchildren (2018), Bones Tan Jones (courtesy of the artist)
Film still: The Land Where Ghosts Could Speak (2024) (courtesy of the artist)
Film still: Trailers (RoCH Fans and Legends) (2015), susan pui san lok (courtesy of the artist)