SINGAPORE — Are you a handsome boy or a pretty girl aged 21 years or older wanting a shot at the silver screen? If so, Eric Khoo wants you.

The Singapore auteur is casting the net far and wide for his latest film, tentatively titled In The Room. As stated in the open casting call posted on his production house Zhao Wei Films’ website, he is looking for “lead actors, supporting cast and extras … with filming dates around mid-August.”

“I’m looking for young, fresh faces,” he told TODAY. “If you want to act, give us a shout!”

But he’s not just looking for new faces, fearlessness might be a real asset too. The casting call also states: “Nudity may be required for some of the roles.”

“I feel like if you shock people, you’ll get to see who comes out,” he laughed. “But no, it’s not going to be all nudity.”

So what sordid tale is one of Singapore’s most celebrated film-makers telling in his latest directorial effort? No, it’s nothing of that sort, actually. “I would actually like to do this for SG50!” he revealed. “In this film, I’ll have a lot of different nationalities, with a lot of tourists coming and going. In fact, I think it’ll be a film with multiple languages, so it’s almost for me, a bite-size of Singapore, a sign of the times of what’s happened here.

“It’s a story that will go through the decades”.

Khoo said that the inspiration came during his time as Jury President of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival last year. “Thing is, Puchon is also known to be a place 30 minutes outside of Seoul, where a lot of people go for sex,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like a super Geylang. They have all these exciting bedrooms and sometimes when you walk into one, you see things that were left behind ... It’s almost like if walls can talk right? I started thinking on and on, with this sort of a concept. And then bam, I think my next movie will be in this room.”

Mike Wiluan, Chief Executive of Infinite Studios, also helped Khoo shape his new movie idea when the company unveiled two high tech soundstages earlier this year. “They’ve got this incredible soundstage and when I saw the space; I thought it would be genius if we construct the room in his studios,” Khoo said. “Normally when you talk about going inside an actual room to film, there are limitations because of the wall and the space. But actually build this to the specifications ... That was also one of the reasons that got me excited - to build this thing!”

This would be the first time Khoo will be shooting on a soundstage set. All his previous efforts have been , in his words, “hit and run” – location shooting that required very little time. This time, he’s moving away from the things he usually does. “If you look in a lot of my films, I’m more interested in the performance, so sometimes, the angles maybe very simple. But I think the nature of this particular work and the different scenarios that we are trying to create - the camera has to be a voice. Otherwise it’d be too static.”

Nevertheless, he’ll be shooing on a budget. “We need to film this as effectively as possible.”

The man who revived Singapore’s film scene with 1995’s Mee Pok Man and 1997’s 12 Storeys is “excited” to go back to directing. “The last film I directed was Tatsumi in 2011, which was an animation film. So it didn’t really allow me that much to work with people,” he said.

So it all boils down to the who’s going to come on board. But even with his lookout for fresh faces, Khoo said he’s not adverse to using established Singaporean stars. “I worked with some of them before when I shot Recipe. It was really easy because it was so fast and it was a joy. So I’m open to maybe using some MediaCorp artistes, fresh faces — it’ll be nice to have everything.”

Those interested to be part of the movie, please email casting [at] zhaowei.com