THE grades of 16 undergraduates hang on one film festival.

They organised the Perspectives Film Festival for a new film festival practicum, and its success will determine how well they fare.

The group, all second-year undergraduates at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), are mass communications majors at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

They chose to feature old Singapore films from the 1950s and 1960s, widely regarded as the 'golden era of Singapore movie-making'.

The shortlist: Four Malay films - Tun Fatimah by Salleh Ghani; Hang Jebat by Hussein Haniff; B.N. Rao's Sumpah Pontianak; and the comedy Seniman Bujang by P. Ramlee - as well as the first Chinese movie made in Singapore - called Lion City - directed by Yi Sui. The movies will be screened from March 31 to April 4 at the National Museum.

Without a template, the task was an uphill struggle for this batch, the first to be offered the module.

Just getting the films ready to screen ate up a lot of time - 300 hours out of four months went into translating and adding subtitles to the films, said student Yan Zixin, 21.

'It was much longer than anticipated because we wanted to ensure we captured the feel of the language in translation just right.'

Then there was the fund-raising - or lack of it. Sponsors constantly turned them down if they even listened to the pitch at all.

Felicia Ng, 21, said: 'Because of that, we had to do away with so many activities we initially planned, such as selling old-style snacks like kacang putih.'

The practicum was specific to a film festival to give everyone in the department a chance to participate by their second year, before they are grouped into four different disciplines in their third year.

So far, learning has been as much about soft skills as paperwork - meeting and understanding how to appeal to older professionals for aid, for instance.

Low Koon Yen, 21, who did much of the work adding subtitles to the films, had this to say about the experience: 'It's been challenging to finish everything on time, but we've been infected with a passion to see it through.'

Tickets for the festival cost $7 with a $1 discount for students, seniors and National Museum members. There will also be a free outdoor movie screening on April 4 at the museum.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Mar 24, 2008.