Nelicia Low
Writer / Director
Singapore
Nelicia Low grew up in multilingual Singapore, where she was born with a thirst for stories. She sidestepped into representing Singapore as a National Fencer for 6 years, and retired after the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou to focus on filmmaking. She received her MFA in Film Directing at Columbia University in New York. Her narrative short film, FREEZE, premiered February 2016 in the International Competition of the 38th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and went on to screen at the 53rd Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, 33rd Busan International Short Film Festival, as well as over 70 international film festivals around the world. She is based in Singapore and Taiwan, where she is working on her first feature, God Sister, a dark comedy set on Matsu island in Taiwan. Having grown up with an autistic brother in a complicated family, Nelicia’s films explore the paradox of mentally-abled people actually being more disturbed than their mentally disabled counterparts, as well as love and perversity in the context of family.
Project
God Sister
神妹
Hui is stuck being the sole caretaker of her autistic brother, as her mother has ran away and her father only cares about his business. She longs to be an actress but has no talent. When she gets mistaken by a cult for being the Goddess Matsu reincarnated, she joins the cult family and goes to live with them, only to discover that her mother has already joined the cult, and has a “new husband”. Her father is soon persuaded to join the cult, forcing her brother along. Hui and her family see the cult as the loving family they never had.
Soon, when Hui abuses her Goddess position to punish her parents, her previously hostile parents team up and hatch a diabolical plan to take down their daughter’s reign…
