CINEMA COMMUNITY BUILDER
DARYL CHEONG
YEAR 3, ENGLISH
Passion for filmmaking overflows in a Pearl’s Hill Terrace studio in Chinatown decked with comfy couches, movie posters and literary classics. Daryl Cheong, 24, created this cosy co-working space to spread his love for film and help young creatives like him chase their moviemaking dreams.
Using funds mainly from teaching tuition, the third-year student and budding filmmaker shells out about $2,000 a month to lease the space. Despite its modest size (about as large as a two-room flat), the area has a film-screening room, an outdoor lounge and two meeting areas for creative folks to use and pay as they wish.
On why he created this shared space, the NTU Talent Scholar explains that filmmaking is a group effort so he uses the space to nurture other young creatives whom he can work with in future.
“I’m not cultivating such connections ‘selflessly’. I know that to do well in the industry, we have to do it together,” he adds.
Through the NTU Film Society, which he leads as its president, Daryl teaches students low-budget filmmaking and film criticism. He also runs monthly movie screenings, writes film reviews, and even acts.
In 2023, he stepped up as the co-festival director of the NTU student-led Perspectives Film Festival after serving as its head of content creation the year before.
Daryl created a communal space for creatives to use on a pay-as-you-wish basis.
Crafting cinematic connections
A theatre student in junior college, Daryl fell in love with film after joining a film critic programme at 18. Although he dreams of bringing his own and Southeast Asian works to an international audience, he doesn’t actually study film at NTU.
Instead, the English major studies subjects to complement his self-taught skills in moviemaking. He takes a minor in creative writing “to tell better stories”.
But since filmmaking is not just an artform but also a business, he did a second minor in entrepreneurship “for the business skills to manage film projects and start my own production company”. He even takes a third minor in modern languages, studying Thai and Tamil, to support his plan to make in-roads in regional co-productions.
Daryl (front row, second from left) and other NTU students he led at the Perspectives Film Festival last year.
Full of praise for him, NTU film lecturer Ms Nikki Draper says that as co-festival director of the Perspectives Film Festival, Daryl expanded its mission to educate and build a community, leading over 20 students “with good humour, compassion and boundless energy”.
“In my 24 years at NTU, I have met only a few students who deeply engage with the entire film community like he does,” she says.
Daryl’s humble background is the source of his drive. “I’m from a low-income family and must have a firm foot in the industry before I graduate, to support my retired parents and relatives,” he says, adding that he appreciates the assistance from the NTU Talent Scholarship.
“The film industry can be cold and competitive,” he adds. “But there’s so much hope and optimism when we support each other. I want us to ‘make it’ together.”
This story was published in the Mar-Apr 2024 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
