We love you forever and ever, The Projector

I feel the power of our collective grief. The sky soaked up our tears and gifted us with this grey Sunday. Our offerings have been accepted and acknowledged. It hasn’t rained yet, but the humidity isn’t as oppressive as usual. Everything feels muted and hushed. Justin Bieber’s Yukon is on repeat in the background. What would I do, if I didn’t love you? Yep. That's the mood.

I stayed up with friends talking movies till 6AM after The Projector’s goodbye party. I got out of bed around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, when the sadness returned with a vengeance. I began sobbing as I was about to leave my studio to pick up my first cup of coffee. There is grief and also so much gratitude. How perfectly timed that there was a New Moon on Friday, the 22nd. A time to release and let go.

Some people have mosques. Some have churches. Some have synagogues. Some have sanghas. For others, The Projector was the closest thing to a sacred space. For a very handful, it was their only sacred space. It's not just the place for shared film geekery, but for calm, celebrations, and even, shelter from calamity.

When I was grappling with the idea of leaving an unloving relationship in 2015, The Projector became that shelter for me. It’s the first spot I went to on me-dates and where I felt safe to come back to myself. It took time to unlearn and rewire my brain's very dualistic and fearful programming. With every film I selected to watch, I learned to take responsibility for my choices again. Crying in the darkness of its theatres, The Projector was where I reconnected with myself and the sacred.

Here’s what's starkly different from the last time I grieved like this: There is no break-up. There is no fear or blame. No one is cutting anyone out from anyone else's life. Miraculously and beautifully, we have all come together in spite of an ending. We are grieving The Projector, our refuge that upheld cinematic traditions, while welcoming and experimenting with new rituals made by and for the othered. The Projector was where we were allowed to freely be the people we want to be while respecting and accepting each others’ differences.

We are grieving the abrupt end of The Projector’s programming. There were many films and events booked and planned for the coming months. There was so much excitement from us regulars, and I can imagine that behind-the-scenes, so much love was put into the programming and coming months to continue to hold everything together.

We are grieving the displacement of one of our most reliable guardians who championed the arts and the marginalised folks of Singapore. Who is willing to take a stand and house the difficult and progressive conversations that our communities need?

We are grieving the culmination of the livelihood of The Projector's dedicated founders and people. Do they know how grateful we are? Would we be able to see them again?

We are grieving because it feels as if there is no longer a container for all the memories and experiences The Projector once kept for us. Who or what can now hold all these things for us? Where will we go?

We are grieving these and so much more.

What might be difficult to see in the messiness of our grief, is that we are its living containers. It is up to us to embody The Projector’s spirit. It’s up to us to go beyond individualism and to carry on cultivating these spaces of care. The Projector had that very rare “spirit of place” (Genius Loci) in a built environment and city.

The sadness lifts when I remember that thankfully, no one is dead from this. None of us here are experiencing the violence and atrocities of war.

We are instead being asked to respond to this cultural disruption. We are being asked to move past our hopelessness and helplessness, and be changed. We are meant to learn from this and support existing independent space(s) and its spirit(s). We are being asked to be committed to the collective. To share our resources. To push as hard as we can against convenience and our habits of disconnection and isolation. To nurture culture, by leaning on and learning from one another. To invite everyone to participate. And very importantly, to show up.

As sad as it has been, it is also a gift and a blessing witnessing everyone crying. Let us continue to share and give space to our grief without shame or fear of judgment. We must seize these uncomfortable moments and transform them into practiced actions. With our pocket devices of infinite possibility, it sometimes feels like we have no control where we put our time and energy. This is not the truth. We can become more discerning of where we pour our attention. The Projector unflinchingly did all the things and was all the things that we are grieving, for a decade. If they did it, we can do.

As the Hungry Ghosts emerge from hell and the festival begins—a reminder that your body is very much alive and that you are connected to everything. In honour of The Projector, the Spirit of Place and Turkish Luke Skywalker—I implore you to stop being a moron, please. Be mindful. Go to the MF Cinema!

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All my love to everyone who has ever been a part of The Projector's legacy and rituals—the founders, collaborators, and the 2,295 active members at the time of its closure on 19 August 2025. To the team— you did it for 'them', but you did so much for us too. Thank you for everything. We love you forever.