When a diaspora that builds global tech products decides to champion a homegrown filmmaker, the result is more than a film tour—it’s a cultural bridge. Annette Lee’s feature debut Dream Stall is about to reach U.S. audiences, thanks to the Bay Area’s Singaporean community.
In the film, Lee’s character recalls happy days at the playground with childhood friends she later turns to for help in Dream Stall.
The story follows Lee’s character as she faces unexpected competition from a prominent influencer while working to save her family’s bak kut teh (pork rib soup) stall.
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The three-city West Coast tour features Q&As with Annette Lee and a San Francisco mixer celebrating Singaporean food, arts and entrepreneurship.
We've built global products here for years. It's time we help build global audiences for Singapore and Southeast Asian films too.”— Mark Sin, President of SingaporeConnect
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, October 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — SingaporeConnect, a grassroots Bay Area organization led by Singaporean tech veteran Mark Sin and his peers, is bringing Dream Stall to three U.S. West Coast cities from November 14–16, 2026. Lee, who both directed and stars in the film, will attend every screening for a post-film Q&A session with audiences.
Presented by Eight Parables and co-hosted by SingaporeConnect, the tour kicks off in Los Angeles’ NoHo Arts District on Saturday, November 14. It then moves to San Francisco’s Japantown Cultural District on Sunday, November 15, where a post-screening Arts & Entrepreneurship mixer will be held, and concludes in the greater Seattle area on Monday, November 16.
The entire tour supports “Spice & Story” by Kampong Collective, a Southeast Asian 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on creating cross-cultural and intergenerational connections.
Here’s what you need to know about the film and its creator. Dream Stall is an English-and-Mandarin feature set in Singapore: a prodigal daughter, torn between grief and glamour, tries to save her family’s hawker stall against her father’s wishes, ultimately learning what social-media fame and success truly mean to her. It marks Annette Lee’s directorial debut, and the tour follows the film’s theatrical release in Singapore and Malaysia. Lee is a Singaporean singer-songwriter, filmmaker, and comedian-digital creator who has built a following across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. With Dream Stall, she joins the wave of digital creators transitioning to film directors, crafting a feature that aims to appeal to both social media natives and classic cinephiles.
> MEDIA EXCLUSIVE DREAM STALL’S GLOBAL TRAILER HERE.
> WATCH ANNETTE LEE’S INSTAGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT HERE.
The tour itself embodies a unique tech-arts synergy: a Singapore film brought to the U.S. West Coast by Singapore’s technology and creative diaspora, hosted and funded by people who build products by day. “Singapore’s technology diaspora is backing Singapore’s storytellers,” said Mark Sin, President of SingaporeConnect and a former Apple hardware engineering lead of two decades. “We’ve built global products here for years. It’s time we help build global audiences for Singapore and Southeast Asian films too.”
“Singapore is a small country with a big heart,” Sin added. “Last year 3,300 people came to the first Singapore Festival in North America, most of them not Singaporean. This tour is the next step: bringing a Singapore story, and the people who made it, to the communities here, and showing that Singapore’s community abroad is a bridge, not an outpost.”
“Candidly, I am a very selective funder. I wanted to bring to global audiences an updated view of Singapore that is more true to contemporary Singaporeans’ sense of humor and struggles as a society. I reached out to Annette as it was her debut as a Director and I found her previous works had creatively juxtaposed these qualities,” said Yik Lin Khoo, a Singapore-based enterprise strategist who started his career in tech and national ICT policy.
Sin and Khoo first met as co-founders of the Singapore Students’ Association at Carnegie Mellon during their college years. Backing Dream Stall marks their first joint endeavor as longtime friends and arts supporters.
When “Crazy Rich Asians” made global headlines in 2018, many Singaporeans felt the film, though set in Singapore, didn’t tell the full story of the country.
“Our richest story is in our deep community kinship. The ‘kampong spirit’ or village that shows up for each other,” said Jan Lin Lee, Eight Parables Executive Producer. “This tour is our story to a world grappling with increasing isolation and to elevate authentic Southeast Asian stories.”
“We see both the AI disruption in film and the catalytic moment for digital-native filmmakers to build a healthy bridge between tech and the arts, one that preserves human soul at the center. Dream Stall checks the boxes for us to pilot a feature film tour with,” added Jan Lin Lee, who came from two decades in social impact, scaling digital communities in sports, and producing premium films for the OTT Olympics.com, before founding her film incubator, Eight Parables.
Following the San Francisco screening, the tour continues with the SingaporeConnect Arts & Entrepreneurship Mixer, featuring a Bak Kut Teh pop-up by Dabao Singapore. Bak Kut Teh is a popular Southeast Asian comfort food where tender pork ribs are slow-simmered in a rich, savory broth. This dish is not on Dabao’s regular menu and is being served in honor of the film’s hawker-stall story. The mixer will also include a conversation on creative entrepreneurship with Annette Lee and Dabao founder Emily Lim (Food Network alum, James Beard Award semifinalist, Chopped champion), hosted by Bay Area content creator and ex-Googler Joanna Hope Lai.
“Dream Stall hits close to home for anyone who has built a food business from scratch. Running a hawker stall is never just business. It’s cultural preservation, keeping recipes and traditions alive so they’re passed on and not lost,” said Emily Lim. “Bak Kut Teh got me through those cold, homesick winters in San Francisco. That feeling is why I started Dabao Singapore. Serving Bak Kut Teh after the film is my way of welcoming everyone to the table.”
The mixer requires a separate ticket, though a bundle price for the screening-and-mixer is available.
For more details on the tour program and to pre-register for screenings, visit singaporeconnect.org/dream-stall. Pre-registrants receive priority access when tickets go on sale, as demand is expected to exceed capacity.
Mark Sin
SingaporeConnect
+1 408-601-0310
media@singaporeconnect.org
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Dream Stall International Trailer
Why it matters: This tour demonstrates how diaspora communities can leverage their professional networks to amplify underrepresented stories on a global stage. By blending film, food, and entrepreneurship, it offers a model for how tech-savvy cultural groups can build bridges—not just outposts—between their home countries and the wider world.
