Calleen Koh ventures into film repressed emotion in her animated short ‘My Wonderful Life’

In Singapore, “chao keng” describes the common act of pretending to be sick to skip work.

“The fact that we have an official term for this is both hilarious and mildly concerning,” says the Singaporean animation filmmaker Calleen Koh. “I wanted to tap into this cultural phenomenon and weave it into my film My Wonderful Life.” The animated short is the story of an overworked mom who collapses at work and gets admitted to a hospital where she finds newfound freedom as a patient.

With this film, Koh wanted to explore themes of existential dread, “because sometimes, the only real break from life’s chaos is in the unlikeliest of places,” she notes. In many ways, the film is inspired by her mother.

In late 2023, Koh’s mother was hospitalised (she’s fine now). She somehow got upgraded to a private suite and was thrilled. “For someone who had been hospitalised, she was weirdly happy. She sent me pictures of herself grinning in a hospital gown. She posted photos of her meals on Facebook,” recalls Koh. “The hospital which 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.”

In her earlier films like Hot Buns, To Kill the Birds & the Bees and Sexy Sushi, the worlds feel bigger than the characters and chaotic things just happen, she shares. Before her mentor at California Institute of the Arts pointed this out, Koh was hesitant to delve into character-driven narratives. “But with My Wonderful Life, the story felt personal and grounded, with the character having more agency in a realistic world,” she reveals. “I loved exploring a character like the mother, who is unfiltered, flawed, and deeply relatable. It’s a shift in my filmmaking that I’m excited to keep exploring.”

My Wonderful Life has been selected in Annecy Film Festival’s official competition. “It’s surreal. I didn’t expect this to happen so early in my career, and it feels incredibly affirming,” she expresses.

My Wonderful Life was created by a small production team of just four people, including Calleen Koh. “It was an ambitious undertaking given the scope of the project,” she says, “but I’m proud of the workflow I developed to keep things efficient and collaborative.”

Despite the size of the team, the production spanned multiple time zones. Koh worked from California, while her art assistant was based in Thailand, her animation assistants in Indonesia and Singapore, her composer in Paris, and her voice actors and producer also in Singapore. “Coordinating schedules was incredibly challenging,” she recalls. “My sleep cycle has probably been permanently affected. I even directed the voice recording session over Zoom at 5 am from my bathroom, trying not to wake my roommate — we were sharing a studio flat at the time.”

Working within a limited budget, Koh said she was mindful not to place excessive demands on her team. “I tried to accommodate their schedules and respect their time as much as possible, and I think that helped build a supportive working environment,” she explains. She also experimented with ways to make the production pipeline more flexible. “Everyone gave their best, regardless of their personal or professional circumstances — and that made all the difference.”

Through her films, Koh loves to make people laugh before giving them a reality check. “While I use elements of surrealism and pop cultural chaos on the surface, underneath, I am exploring what it means to suppress desire, maintain appearances, or conform to expectations,” she notes. “Growing up in conservative Singapore, I was surrounded by a culture of repression. People did not talk about sex. Mothers were not allowed to rest. Even protests required a permit and were limited to a small park in the city. I never felt at home in that world, and my work has always been a way of breaking out of it. Animation lets me distort reality just enough to tell slightly uncomfortable truths. I am drawn to stories that are unhinged and personal, but also culturally critical.”

Koh has been fascinated with animation since she was 11 years old. While pursuing her MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts currently, she is also working on a horror-comedy short called RIP Me, Lol as well as developing an adult animated series titled Down at Motel 629, which won the Best Pitch Award at SXSW’s SeriesFest Pitch-a-thon.

“Across my films, genre becomes a tool for exposing pressure points within culture,” she highlights. “I make films that are honest, empathetic, and audacious in their own way—because sometimes,