Meet Calleen Koh, One of the 5 Winners of the 6th Annual Focus Features & JetBlue Student Short Film Showcase

The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced that Calleen Koh’s short film My Wonderful Life is one of five works chosen by a special jury of filmmakers, curators, and critics for the Focus Features & JetBlue Student Short Film Showcase. Created as her MFA thesis film for California Institute of the Arts, My Wonderful Life was selected out of a pool of projects from various graduate programs.

In Koh’s animated short film, My Wonderful Life, an overworked and overlooked mom in Singapore named Grace Lee collapses at work. After being admitted to a hospital, she finds a newfound freedom and identity as a patient.

We asked Koh to tell us a little about the inspiration for her film, the artists who influenced her, and her plans for the future.

Follow her on Instagram @calleenkoh and learn more at www.calleenkoh.com.

Where did the idea for My Wonderful Life come from?

The idea for My Wonderful Life was mostly inspired by my mother. In my 24 years of life, moving to America was the first time I had ever lived away from home. The last thing my mom said to me at the airport was, “Make a film about me when you’re there.”

Fast forward to sometime in late 2023, my mom was unexpectedly hospitalized—don’t worry, she’s fine now. The funny part? She got upgraded to a private suite and was thrilled. For someone who had just been hospitalized, she was weirdly happy, sending me pictures of herself grinning in a hospital gown, posting her meals on Facebook with captions like, “My sumptuous meal.” I remember thinking, “Wtfff but ok.” Like, why is she so happy given the circumstances? How the hospital felt like a vacation to her was this perfect blend of tragicomedy that sparked the idea for a film about an overworked mother who finally finds peace when she gets admitted to a hospital.

At the same time, there’s this Singaporean phenomenon called "chao keng," where people fake illness to get out of work. The fact that we have an official term for it is both hilarious and mildly concerning. I wanted to tap into this cultural phenomenon and weave it into my film, exploring themes of existential dread—because sometimes, the only real break from life’s chaos is in the unlikeliest of places.

How did you find your cast?

Honestly, I was worried about casting since I was based in Los Angeles at the time. I even considered making the film without dialogue—but then it would’ve lost the Singaporean-ness I wanted to capture. The way we speak is such a big part of our identity, and I knew I had to embrace that in the film. I am super fortunate because, before moving to the US for my master’s degree, I was working on another project with my producer, Si En, who’s based in Singapore. When I started developing this film, I reached out to her, and she helped assemble this star-studded cast from Singapore.

Yeo Yann Yann, who plays Grace, and Zheng Ge Ping, who plays her husband, are local icons. I grew up watching them in films and TV shows that I adored! Getting to direct them for this short film was unreal. They were so brilliant and playful with the script; it was such a dream to work with them. For the other roles—the two daughters and the nurse—we actually got Yann Yann’s own daughter, Vera Ma, to play the youngest daughter, which was such a cool full-circle moment. For the older sister and the nurse, we cast two amazing rising actors, Genevieve Tan and Matthias Teh, who went to the same undergraduate school as me.

We recorded the voiceovers in Singapore while I directed them remotely from the US in my bathroom. At 5 AM. I was living in a studio apartment with a roommate, and I didn’t want to wake her up with my shenanigans.

What in the film most captures what you saw in your mind when you first imagined the story?

I think they were the scenes that were also featured in the trailer—the match cuts of Grace looking more and more exhausted as her day goes on. That sequence was actually one of the first few storyboards I drew for the film, and it never changed throughout the entire process, from pitching to the final product. I felt it captured her existential dread so efficiently and effectively that there was no need to tweak it—it just worked.

Every one of my films has a different visual style, but the energy of the storytelling always stays consistent. With My Wonderful Life, I wanted to portray Singapore in a way that feels authentic, whether it’s the familiar sight of walking home from work or the specific sense of humor we have. A big inspiration for the film was those cheesy, tacky "Good Morning" stickers and GIFs that the older generation loves to send on WhatsApp. You know the ones—stock photos of coffee cups, cats, and flowers, sparkled to hell and back. I fully embraced this so-bad-it's-good aesthetic in my film, from the photobashed backdrops to the over-the-top sparkly edits in certain scenes. What’s considered cheesy or ugly to some felt like the perfect visual language for this story.

What was the biggest lesson learned working on My Wonderful Life?

Embrace authenticity, and it won’t feel cringe—it’ll feel real.

As an emerging filmmaker, who are your influences?

My mentors at CalArts have been a huge influence on me. My mentor, Kangmin Kim, is a master of 2.5D stop motion and paper puppets—he’s the one who taught me everything I know about it. And then my other mentor, Pia Borg, really pushed me out of my comfort zone to fully embrace narrative writing. My Wonderful Life wouldn’t be what it is today without their guidance.

What was the first film you saw that made you want to be a filmmaker?

Coraline! I grew up in the CGI generation, watching Shrek and Barbie movies on repeat. But as a 5-year-old, I never really grasped how animation worked—CGI felt like magic, almost too complex to break down. Then the stop-motion film, Coraline, came out, and I stumbled upon a behind-the-scenes time-lapse on YouTube. Watching animators move the puppet frame-by-frame and seeing the character come to life completely blew my mind. It was the first time I saw what went into crafting a story—not just the animation itself, but the labor, the choices, and the intentionality behind every movement and every detail. It made me realize that filmmaking isn’t just about visuals. It’s about creating a world and making the audience believe in it. From that moment, I became obsessed with how films are made, from animation to storytelling to directing. Coraline didn’t just introduce me to animation—it was my first glimpse into the magic of filmmaking as a whole.

Are you working on a feature film?

I am, but I’m starting with a short film version first. It’s a horror comedy involving ghosts, but I can’t reveal too much yet since the script is still going through rewrites. What I can say is that it’s going to be a lot of fun—I promise. I’m also currently developing an animated TV series that recently won Best Pitch Award at SXSW’s SeriesFest Pitch-A-Thon!. It’s titled Down at Motel 629, and I’m really excited about where it’s headed.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.