Learning to Breathe with Azina

There has always been a certain sense of eeriness in walking past the trees by the roadside, each of them meticulously planted at equal distances from one another. Rules of conformity have seeped into their roots, reminding us that even nature can be moulded into discipline. Perhaps it is not too different for women, who have been raised to fit into different moulds, be it that of a daughter, wife, or mother, and who have all gotten used to the hushed chastising of what not to say, what not to do, and what not to be. 

Attitudes towards both nature and women often mirror one another as both are expected to be tamed, beautiful, and controlled. Azina Binte Abdul Nizar’s short film, We Learn to Breathe in Distant Places, defies these expectations. Instead, it explores the tensions between the liberating respite nature offers and the suffocating confines of domestic life. The film was selected for this year’s Singapore Youth Film Festival, and was also part of Singapore International Film Festival’s Singapore Panorama last year.

As an emerging artist-filmmaker, Azina’s practice revolves around her growing interest in the intersections between womanhood, nature, and identity, shaped by both her personal experiences and broader reflections on the environments we inhabit. In this conversation, she reflects on her creative process and the evolving ideas that continue to shape her work.

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Phyllis: You studied film at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and are now about to graduate from NTU with a degree in English. How did moving from a film education to a literature-based discipline change the way you think about storytelling, structure, or character?

Azina: When you study film, much of the training is technical. Despite being exposed to different forms of cinema, the theoretical foundation isn’t always extensive enough to help you fully understand where your own interests lie as a writer and filmmaker.

Moving into literature felt like a way of deepening my research into the themes I was already drawn to. Seeing how different works across countries and time periods engage with similar questions has helped me better contextualise what I want to do with my own work. For example, when I’m engaged with African or South Asian Literature, I think about how these writers are able to talk about their specific and localised experiences in ways that resonate universally. Although I’m not directly influenced by it, I think their intentionality in their writing inspires me.

P: I was really struck by how We Learn to Breathe in Distant Places feels almost like a visual poem, particularly in its fragmented storytelling and careful attention to visual framing and sound. Could you share how the film first took shape for you? Was there a particular moment that made you realise this was something you needed to make?

A: With my previous works, I tried not to have linear narratives, and they were highly symbolic. After studying literature and encountering all these different works, I wanted to venture into something more narratively accessible to people, while also holding on to some part of myself within it. 

I began thinking more about the idea of escaping and getting lost in the forest, so magical realism and mythicism were themes that first came to mind. I was also interested in engaging with the lived experiences of women and in how society stifles and restricts us, and I wanted to explore the kind of conversation I could have about all these aspects. That was how the film developed into what it became.

P: I saw that you mentioned in your interview with Catch.sg, that now you were thinking about whether it was ‘right to classify women in nature’ in your film and that you might have wanted to go beyond the nurturing aspect of nature and explore its grotesqueness. Looking back on it now, do you still relate to the film and the initial way you conceived it?

A: I definitely still relate to Distant Places, but for me, when I talked about how it would be interesting to explore the grotesque, I think it also comes from the idea of research. I don’t know how the story would have taken shape if I had done further research into how other writers engage with the grotesque or abject aspects of nature and femininity.

The film still stems from my personal experience as a woman and my desire to seek out nature to avoid engaging with society so actively. In nature, I do feel a sense of liberation, as opposed to an urban environment where everybody is enforcing all kinds of social conventions on me. That’s where the film came from, as I was trying to explore the natural environment as a site of escapism and magic.