“When Passabe became a full-blown film. It was sometime in March 2004. We were sitting in our room at our guest house in Dili, wondering if we should just pack up and go home, or stay in Timor, keep filming and exhaust all our savings. We’d been shooting for a two months and knew we’d found an incredible story. But no one - not a single broadcaster we approached in Singapore - was interested in funding us. We were down to our last 500 dollars. We could go home and find decent jobs or slog on, trust our instincts, and face the prospect of going broke. It was a tough call. But we chose to stay. And that was when we realized that we didn’t have to conform to any broadcaster’s standards. We didn’t have to make a “traditional” documentary. We didn’t have a commissioning editor to answer to; no deadlines to meet. We could let the story tell itself, allow things to play out.”
– Lynn Lee, co-director of Passabe
Now showing … at the National Museum … PASSABE.