Children's Day
by Giselle Lin (Singapore)
Participant of Short Film Incubator 2022
Shy and imaginative eight-year-old Xuan struggles to find the perfect outfit for her school’s upcoming Children’s Day celebration while adjusting to a turbulent home life and an unlikely new friendship at school.
Accolades
In Competition
75th Berlinale Shorts Competition
36th Singapore International Film Festival – Best Singapore Short
Zagreb Film Festival 2025
Official Selection
20th Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival
The story of the film is inspired by one Children’s Day from when I was eight years old. My best friend (then and now) asked that we match outfits and lipgloss, and I agreed, despite having neither lipgloss nor a new outfit. Children’s Day is an ever-ebbing and flowing love letter to eight-year-old Giselle, and I hope everyone who watches the final film finds a bit of their eight-year-old self in it as well.
– Giselle Lin
About the director
Giselle Lin Xuan Qing is a Singaporean writer-director. Her works include her undergrad thesis short film Yi Yi (Time Flows in Strange Ways on Sundays) (2021 Locarno Pardi di Domani), and documentary short films I look into the mirror and repeat to myself (2023 Locarno Pardi di Domani) and Things (2024 Kurzfilm Hamburg). Her latest short film Children’s Day premiered in competition at Berlinale 2025. Her debut feature project in development, Midnight Blue Spring, won the grand prize at the 2022 Locarno Residency. Giselle is greatly inspired by the impermanence of memory, connections, and nature, and always seeks to tell stories filled with human truth, touch, and taste.