John Clang

Absent Smile is a loving document of Clang’s parents and their mixed feelings of longing yet support for their son. Using the age-old format of family portraiture augmented with digital means, the spectral quality of absent family members projects a tentative reunion across time and space.

In New York, Min is suffering from writer's block, depression and hallucinations. On the opposite side of the world, in Singapore, her adult daughter Renée, left there years ago by Min, struggles with existential questions. The young artist makes her failed marriage central to her new project, while almost drowning in suicidal thoughts and loneliness. In this drama, the two estranged women try to stay afloat, with varying degrees of success.

An untimely death of a theater actress causes her to be trapped with a family of strangers in Singapore while waiting for reincarnation.

The film – part of a video installation – records a very intimate process of the director John Clang and his family taking a family portrait together using Skype and projection.