Lau Wai Mun Francis

MA Creative Writing

2024

Francis is a published poet, filmmaker and educator based in Singapore. His films set out to explore notions of loss, guilt and redemption, and have travelled to festivals in Italy, Romania, India, Hong Kong and Japan where they have also won awards. His films have been incorporated as oral texts by the Cambridge Exam Syndicate.

When not on set, Francis develops and teaches modules on screenwriting, cinema studies, film production and creative thinking skills at tertiary institutions and design schools. He has an honours degree in English Literature, as well as professional qualifications in education.

storymerchant7@gmail.com

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Thesis work

A feature film screenplay, Saudade tells the story of a man who arrives at the crossroads in his life after losing his daughter to a snorkelling accident. A chance encounter with a runaway girl on a road trip to Thailand helps him find forgiveness.

The story explores the impact of loss and how its intersection with grief fractures one's self-identity. In the face of trauma, the individual rediscovers himself after embarking on a reparative journey.

Instead of relying on conflict and plot to drive the story, the screenplay seeks to deconstruct the classical three act structure by adopting techniques and conventions from alternative storytelling traditions.

It borrows the recurring motifs found in the Japanese story form 'kishōtenketsu' to establish character and psychological depth, and experiments with shifting perspectives to frame its ideological discourse on loss, toxic masculinity and healing.

Published work and readings

Published works

Lau, Francis (2023). If Travis Bickle had been a Singaporean. Missed Connections: Microfiction from Asia, edited by Felix Cheong and Noelle Q. de Jesus, Marshall Cavendish, pp 83

Conferences and events

Oct 2023, Participated at Ubud Writers & Readers Festival
Oct 2020, Minority Co-production Fund, awarded by Estonian Film Institute for Feature Film project Borderland
July 2019, Feature film project selected by TorinoFilmLab for mentorship
March 2019, Film in competition at 28th DAKINO International Film Festival
June 2018, Film in competition at 14th Bucharest International Film Festival

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