Over three  exhilarating, nerve-wracking, inspiring days this past weekend, Joe and Christine worked with more than 150 volunteers from the community of Tiong Bahru to create a sweeping portrait of the heritage estate, its hawker centre and wet market. Despite torrential rains on Day One, and working in and around the bustling stalls of the market and hawker centre, Joe, Christine and crew have captured stunning images and beautiful performances from our leads and their surrounding cast, all of whom were drawn from the community. The response from the community exceeded our most optimistic expectations, while even the weather ended up co-operating.

All of the production shots of these extraordinary three days can be seen here.

Thanks to all of our non-professional volunteer cast for their extraordinarily professional attitude and dedication to the project. What was especially powerful and humbling was the commitment and seriousness shown by everyone when faced with the pretty daunting task of being filmed by a huge 35 mm camera with a widescreen lens and facing a professional crew of over 20 and hundreds of spectators. I know the resulting film will do them justice.

Special thanks to our brilliant leads:  Leo, Madam and Veronica (pictured above with Joe and Christine). Thanks also to the terrific crew from Zhao Wei Films; to our partners*, to the hawkers and traders for their generosity with their time and space, and, of course, to Joe and Christine, whose integrity, good humour, passion, patience and vision brought us all together.

Civic Life: Tiong Bahru will be shown at the National Museum of Singapore every Tuesday in October, and will also be screened as part of the London Film Festival that month, before embarking on a UK tour.

For project updates and sneak previews of the film over the coming months, go to http://www.civiclife.sg

*Civic Life: Tiong Bahru is a collaboration between the National Museum of Singapore and the British Council, with the support of the Singapore International Foundation and the A.UDE Promotion Programme of the URA. We are grateful also for the support given to the project by the NEA and Central Singapore CDC.