Home swee home.

Abstract

Migration is a hot issue in many countries around the world, but Singapore’s recent

immigrant-driven population explosion has been exceptional in magnitude.

The recent influx of immigrants in Singapore has caused tension and uncertainty, prompting

us to question what it truly means to be Singaporean. Through Home Swee Home, the

filmmakers explore our society’s rapidly changing demographics and learn about our

common national identities.

We set out to understand through research and interviews why some Singaporeans

discriminate against immigrants, and find out what it would take to integrate them into our

society. A key question was to define who qualifies as a Singaporean, by first defining the

Singaporean identity.

With our diverse cultural heritage, the Singaporean identity is a complex concept with dual

aspects of nationality and ethnicity. We felt that the question of the Singaporean identity

could not be answered by any one person but only as a collective community.

To communicate these abstract issues to a local audience, we needed to express them in

concrete experiences. We sought to make a semi-observational documentary that would

show diverse subjects and their interaction with the Singaporean spaces around them, such

as hawker centres and void decks.

Through the everyday lives of three people who are all Singaporean in their own unique

ways, Home Swee Home celebrates the diversity of the Singaporean identity.

The title refers to the significance of Singapore as our home and highlights the relationship

between our identity and the spaces we live in. Swee is a colloquial term for something

beautiful and expresses our collective desire to live in a fine city.