Thanks to restoration, classic films like The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998) can still be shown on a big screen 20 years after its cinema run. On a mission to preserve Singapore’s film heritage, film archivist Chew Tee Pao saves important movies and gives them a second life.

Chew Tee Pao is an archivist with the Asian Film Archive. Since 2014, he has overseen the restoration of more than 30 films from the archive’s collection. He has written about film restoration in BiblioAsia.

What Tee Pao Talked About

• 2:23 – Challenges of restoring The Teenage Textbook Movie (1998)
• 8:06 – How AFA restored They Call Her… Cleopatra Wong (1978) without the original negatives
• 13:26 – The sad fate of P. Ramlee’s Seniman Bujang Lapok (1961)
• 16:20 – The restoration process for Sri Lankan film Bambaru Avith, which was selected for Cannes Film Festival in 2020
• 20:47 – Tee Pao’s experience at Venice Film Festival
• 22: 48 – The film that got away in terms of restoration
• 23:40 – A common misconception about film restoration
• 24:23 – Film restoration does not equate to preservation
• 26:41 – The importance of saving film heritage

Transcript and Resources

• Read the transcript: biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/saving-singapores-film-heritage/transcript/
• Read the BiblioAsia articles on restoring Singapore films and Asian films: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/saving-singapores-film-heritage/

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This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by One Dash. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Tee Pao for coming on the show.

BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.