Sorahouse: Sg Media Producing Naked Truth Films About Southeast Asia

It’s 4am in Dharavi, when Malai rises in the early morning darkness to start preparing idlis (fermented rice cakes). Outside, the streets of the world’s biggest slum are quiet but Malai has already begun his day, a day that often lasts past midnight. He and his two brothers have been selling street snacks to Mumbai locals for 20 years. Malai’s story is just one of the many that is featured in the documentary series Slumfood Millionaire. The show takes you within the slums of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Cambodia and The Philippines to tell the story of the inhabitants and, of their cuisine.

Each episode follows the story of two different cooks and features mouth-watering recipes prepared with cheap, local ingredients. We’re taken on a culinary tour, but these are not fine dining establishments. Many of the dishes are made inside one room multi-generational family homes, on street carts, or in narrow alleyways where children play. They use off cuts and offal or source their food from the sea. They create recipes full of flavour and texture and tell a story of place: Chickpea fritters with chutney, Monok (Spicy double cooked chicken), Sinagol (Pufferfish turmeric stew), Larb lerd sook (Meat salad with blood and bile). And all sold at prices that are accessible to the slums’ residents.

Tatik, filmed in Kali Code, Yogyakarta, cooking up her signature dish of chicken heads stewed in the iconic Javanese bacem style. Tatik was such a hit that she was invited to an in-person event in Jakarta to demonstrate and serve her dishes to fans of the show. Photo: Supplied/Sorahouse.

“The tagline that’s always steered us with the show is: Good food does not have to be expensive.” Kelly Lin, the series and executive producer tells me. “We wanted to be able to show a different side to life in the slums. Food shows are always celebrating Michelin starred chefs and fine dining, but cooks working with limited resources could be as skilled as them and it’s worth celebrating their recipes and techniques when working with less.”

Kelly is the co-founder and company director, alongside her husband, Ericson Gangoso of production company Sorahouse. Based out of Singapore, with satellite teams around the region including in Ericson’s home country of the Philippines, the company first started out in 2014 with Ericson creating and producing documentaries for the History Channel, Discovery and the Crime and Investigation channel. A few years in and the company had grown enough that Kelly was able to quit her day job and dedicate herself solely to Sorahouse.

Kelly grew up in Singapore but spent her high school and university years in Auckland. She had planned on majoring in English and picked film and media as her second major “almost as an afterthought. I always loved watching movies so why not take a course that involved watching a lot of them?” Her love for film only grew from there and became the main focus of her studies. As graduation approached, Kelly began to see the possibility of having a career in development and was buoyed by the encouragement of her mentor and professor Dr Shuchi Kothari. Development is everything pre-production, including conceptualisation, idea development, and crafting a compelling pitch in order to secure a commission and funding. On an extended OE back to Singapore she landed an internship with an independent documentary production company, the only one advertising for a Development Intern. She smiles, “Rest is history as they say.”

Behind-the-scenes shot of Kelly and the team working on a scene for the history show Streets Made for Talking. Using tiny miniatures, they re-enact an outrageous bus hijacking incident in the 1970s, where a 15-year-old boy stole a public bus and took it on a joyride through one of Singapore's iconic neighbourhoods, eventually crashing into the wall of a former jail run by the British. Photo: Supplied/Sorahouse.

Non-fiction is the medium of choice for Sorahouse and they have produced award winning documentary films and series that span multiple genres: from history to true crime to nature docos while also striving to tell stories “of the sides of life and people you don’t normally see on screen.” Perhaps this is why Slumfood Millionaire has been so popular and resonated with its audience. It has won multiple awards, racked up over 10.5 million views on YouTube and aired a second season that ventures out the tightly packed urban neighbourhoods into the provinces, with a third season soon on its way. 

While the show doesn’t try to ignore the issues that can come with living in the slums it never resorts to ‘poverty porn.’ Instead it captures something fundamental about the human experience-the way food ties us to place, to culture and to our history. Many of the local chefs that are featured create recipes passed down to them; they inherit their food stall from parents, they work alongside their children or partner, and prepare dishes using skills known only by their ancestors. Food is a family affair, it is history and it forms a fundamental part of the community of the slums. It is not about profit for many of the cooks, for many it is enough to know that the people in their neighbourhood are able to eat. As one resident says, “We are like a family. We see each other every day, there’s a bond between us.”

Kelly and Ericson’s creativity stems from a curiosity about the world and they find inspiration from many corners. This drive has pushed them to branch out into unfamiliar formats while remaining committed to producing quality content. Forcing themselves out of their creative comfort zone means the work is never monotonous and every year brings something different.  Their goal is to tackle each new project in a fresh way and to find joy in a whole new topic.

Behind-the-scenes shot of Kelly and the team working on a scene for the history show Streets Made for Talking. Using tiny miniatures, they re-enact an outrageous bus hijacking incident in the 1970s, where a 15-year-old boy stole a public bus and took it on a joyride through one of Singapore's iconic neighbourhoods, eventually crashing into the wall of a former jail run by the British. Photo: Supplied/Sorahouse.

For true crime buffs, Sorahouse produced the Dark Web docuseries, which delves into the world of online crime – sextortion, wildlife trafficking, child pornography and the online black market. Given the subject matter, they gain incredible access to people directly involved, such as Jason who once worked for one of the biggest sextortion rings in the Philippines, starting out when he was in high school. A key part of researching and developing these series involves visiting the locations and utilising the support of people who are part of these communities.

“Recces are really important to find the right people, we work with trusted fixers and Ericson meets the people ahead of filming to get to know them,” Kelly says.

For those seeking less heavy content another series produced by Sorahouse is ‘Ahead of their time’. Using a blend of archival footage and face to face interviews, they chart the rise of companies such as Netflix, TikTok, and Fitbit on their journey to becoming household names.

Each episode covers two iconic products separated by decades but connected by their pioneering spirit and by being at the forefront of their industry. Episode one takes us back to the seventies where Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler are traveling overland in their blue van with the goal of reaching Australia. We witness the birth of Lonely Planet and its contribution to independent travel before fast forwarding to the mid 2000s when a group of graphic designers rented out their San Francisco pad to out of town conference goers; the first listing for what would later become Air BnB. “It’s essentially a business documentary series that doesn’t feel like one.”  

Although a lot of their work takes them overseas, during the COVID border closures Sorahouse pivoted and looked to Singapore to provide inspiration. One show to come from this time was ‘One year in the gardens’, which delves into the flora and fauna of Singapore’s massive urban UNESCO Heritage botanical garden. This style of wildlife documentary filmmaking – using macro and nocturnal photography was a whole new area for Kelly and Ericson but, “We are most proud of when we push ourselves to try exciting new formats that challenge our creativity,” Kelly says, “Daring to try our hand out at wildlife documentary, following the creatures of the Botanic Gardens over a year, during the pandemic no less!”

White breasted waterhen foraging in Singapore’s Botanic Garden. Photo: Supplied/Sorahouse.

The extended time at home during the pandemic “reinvigorated my interest in finding new ways to tell stories about the relatively short history of Singapore that may feel like it’s been covered a million times before, and then to find the quirky lesser-known stories that we would find relatable.”

The recent Oscar wins of Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan and TV shows like ‘Beef’ have shown media with predominantly Asian casts can garner large audiences. However, for Kelly it goes further than just having Asian faces on the screen:

“I think it’s less about having stories from Asia on screen as I feel that Asia is often fodder for a lot of programmes out there. But to us it’s more about telling stories from Asia from an Asian perspective.” 

This is why for their more unscripted docuseries they prefer to let people tell their own story. “We don’t really steer them to certain answers or script them compared to other shows. We let them speak for themselves and get their candid responses.”

Whether those stories are the Swinging 60’s fashion of Singapore’s Orchard Road, the colourful and often seedy history of the Bras Basah and Bugis District or something as universally relatable as sharing a meal cooked with love with family and friends, Sorahouse is committed to telling stories that matter, and most importantly, having fun while doing so.

 - Asia Media Centre