Sanct Social releases Episode 7, a short film about keeping two weeks with family close after the flight home

Sanct Social, the Singapore-registered social app for close friends and family, released Episode 7 of its short film series on YouTube on Friday 17 October. The film is free to watch; the app is a free download on the App Store in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia and nine more countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, India and Japan. “Every moment, a star.” picks up where Episode 6 ended: the two-week visit is over and Keisha flies back to Singapore. The film has no spoken lines. It follows the night after a goodbye, in two bedrooms in two countries: a quiet moment shared from Jakarta, a weekly recap and a sky of moments opened in Singapore, three sticky notes, and one heart. Every app screen in it is the real app.

SINGAPORE – In a departure hall in Jakarta, two sisters hold on to each other a little longer than the queue behind them would like. Then one of them walks through the gate, does not look back, and then does.

That is how “Every moment, a star.”, the seventh short film in the series by the Singapore-registered start-up Sanct Social, begins. Sanct Social is a social app for close friends and family, free on the App Store in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia and nine more countries, and the series tells one family’s story through the app as it is today. Episode 6 opened in an arrival hall with a visit. Episode 7 opens in a departure hall with the thing every family with someone abroad knows well: the two weeks are over, and the house goes back to three plates.

What a quiet moment says

The story is set on Friday 17 October. That evening Clarissa, the younger sister, shares one moment from her bedroom: a photo of the empty fourth chair, with two words, “Quiet again.”, and her sister tagged in it. She does not write how she feels. On Sanct Social the moment carries a small Memoji, a tiny pixel Sancty with one word under it, and tonight the word is “Isolated”.

The film makes no speech about it. In Singapore, Keisha’s phone simply shows a soft note: her sister’s Memoji turned rough, maybe check in. The film’s argument is small and practical: the people who love you should not have to guess.

A sky of moments

Keisha lies on her bed with the phone above her face. Sancty, the small companion inside the app, brings her the week’s recap: three of her own moments from the two weeks, on a little tablet. Then she opens the Parallel Universe, where every moment a person shares becomes a star in their own sky, and flies over to her sister’s.

There the two weeks are laid out as stars. The Parallel Universe is part of the Sanct Social app on the App Store today, not a film effect. She taps them one by one, and each one opens: the four plates from Papa’s birthday, the doorbell, the five faces on one video call. The camera drifts from her face to the ceiling as if the ceiling were the sky. It is the series’ own memory, and the audience is invited to recognise it.

Three sticky notes and a heart

Keisha sits up and writes her sister a thoughts board, three sticky notes, at reading pace: “Papa’s cake. Still thinking about it.” “Five faces. Thank you for the fifth.” And the last one, in green: “Same time next month? Sanctum, 6 pm.”

In Jakarta, Clarissa reads them, long-presses the message and puts one heart on it. In Singapore a phone lights up a ceiling, and nobody picks it up. The film ends the way the sisters’ nights do: two phones face down on two night tables, and the same star through both windows. In the morning, Clarissa’s new moment from the bus stop carries a different word: “Hopeful”.

“Episode 2 was ‘Come back soon?’ and ‘Soon.’ Episode 7 is the grown-up version of that promise: a goodbye that already has the next date in it,” said Mr Sion Abednego, founder of Sanct Social. “We built the Parallel Universe because a feed forgets. A sky does not. Two weeks with your family should still be there when you are back at your desk in another country, and you should be able to fly over and look at them.”

About the film and the app

“Every moment, a star.” is the seventh episode of the Sanct Social story on YouTube. Every app screen in it comes from the app as it is today, changed only for the characters’ names, words, photos and times: the Memoji on a moment, the note in Activity when a friend’s Memoji turns rough, Sancty’s weekly recap, the Parallel Universe, a thoughts board with sticky notes, a reaction on a message, and tagging a friend on a moment. Sanct Social is free with no ads, available for iPhone on the App Store in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia and in nine more countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, India and Japan, in English, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi; the Android version is not ready yet. More than 1,000 people are already on the platform.

Sanct Social can be downloaded through https://sanct.social

This press release has also been published on VRITIMES