Pick of the Week

OPEN: The prequel festival to the Singapore International Festival Of Arts (Sifa), OPEN, or Open Participate Enrich Negotiate, aims to change Singapore's cultural landscape by encouraging audience ownership of ideas, issues and themes. The event features up to 17 days of films, performances, talks and more, to prepare festival-goers for Sifa.

OPEN's events are organised by five theme tags, linked to Sifa 2014's theme of Legacy and the Expanded Classic, which present the ways in which these legacies affect the present and the future. The themes include Legacies of Violence, Iconic Legacies, Digital Legacies, Personal Legacies and Legacies of Science.

Events include a portraiture exhibition by award-winning photographer and visual activist Zanele Muholi, screenings of films and talks by South African dance critic Adrienne Siches and more. Also included are a series of films and live performances on three 20th century artistic icons - German playwright Bertolt Brecht, mother of modern dance Martha Graham and innovative theatre company The Wooster Group. Under Digital Legacies, there will be several talks about 89Plus, a long-term international and multiplatform research project on the perspective of the emerging Internet generation. Local indie band The Sam Willows will also be performing live. Other film screenings include documentary Web Junkies, Holy Motors, and Science Is Fiction - a selection of short films.