Shirkers was a Singapore-made 1992 cult classic from teenage friends Sandi Tan, Jasmine Ng and Sophie Siddique —or it would have been, had the 16mm footage not been stolen by their enigmatic American collaborator Georges Cardona. More than two decades after Cardona disappeared, Tan, now a novelist in L.A., returns to the country of her youth and to the memories of a man who both enabled and thwarted her dreams. Magically, too, she returns to the film itself, revived in a way she never could have imagined.
Directed, written and produced by Sandi Tan, SHIRKERS debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where Tan won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. The film was produced by Jessica Levin and Maya Rudolph, co-edited by Lucas Celler and Kimberley Hassett, photographed by Iris Ng, with an original score by Ishai Adar.