Most individuals know Annette Lee as the lady behind Chantelle Tiffany Koh, Singapore’s fictitious self-proclaimed “most well-known influencer” — all designer references, mangled English, and spectacular obliviousness. The character went viral, received shared endlessly, and even landed Annette in a room interviewing actual Korean celebrities together with Yoo Jae-suk and Lee Kwang-soo, who performed together with the joke fantastically. However behind the persona is somebody whose artistic vary goes far deeper than any single character she has ever performed.
Annette Rochelle Lee was born in 1992 and grew up with an early love for storytelling. She taught herself guitar from the age of 12, began writing songs at 15, and went on to check digital filmmaking at Nanyang Technological College’s Faculty of Artwork, Design and Media. Her pupil quick movies weren’t simply college tasks — Commencement represented Singapore on the Hong Kong Worldwide Cellular Movie Awards and gained Finest Artwork Route on the Singapore Quick Movie Awards, whereas her thesis movie Preserve Mum earned her a Finest Director nomination on the Nationwide Youth Movie Awards. She had a transparent voice and a transparent course lengthy earlier than most individuals had heard of her.
The SGAG years
Annette joined SGAG in 2015 after the platform got here throughout her weblog, the place she had been drawing comics and writing about what she known as her “fleeting existence.” She began out behind the digicam however rapidly moved in entrance of it, creating the ditzy, bespectacled character Sue-Ann for the platform’s comedy sketches. She stayed for 5 years, constructing an viewers and sharpening her craft, earlier than leaving in 2020 to pursue her personal work with extra artistic freedom.
It was the best transfer. Her personal platform gave her the house to develop the characters and codecs that might develop into her signature, together with Chantelle and Auntie Susan from her Asian Father or mother Tings sequence. She additionally teamed up with musician Benjamin Kheng for The Ann and Ben Present, which produced The Caifan Music in 2021, a parody of ordering cai png that she has described as her proudest achievement. It turned her breakout second, the type of content material that travels organically as a result of it’s rooted in one thing genuinely recognisable. Singapore’s broader creator panorama has produced many voices like hers — you may get a way of that vary on this have a look at feminine creators value following.
A Forbes checklist and a movie
In 2022, Annette was listed on Forbes Asia’s 30 Beneath 30, recognition that felt much less like a shock and extra like affirmation of one thing her viewers already knew. She had been constructing one thing actual for years, and the checklist merely put a reputation to it.
Then got here the larger leap. After a dialog with filmmaker Anthony Chen at a piece occasion in 2022, the seed of an concept took root. By 2025, Annette was writing the screenplay for her debut characteristic movie. By Could 2026, Dream Stall was in cinemas.
The movie follows Enya, a high-achieving college graduate who takes over her household’s bak kut teh stall after her father decides to close it down. It’s a bilingual drama-comedy that tackles one thing Annette has clearly thought deeply about: what it truly means to reach a society as pragmatic and goal-driven as Singapore’s. She wrote it, directed it, and starred in it, alongside a formidable forged that included Mark Lee, Ya Hui, Xixi Lim, Xander Pang, and cameos from Jack Neo and Hossan Leong. She additionally wrote two authentic songs for the movie.
The opinions had been heat. One critic described it as “heat, humorous and unmistakably honest,” noting that you can really feel how a lot the challenge meant to her in each scene. When a small variety of viewers expressed dissatisfaction, Annette did one thing characteristically daring — she held a public suggestions and refund session at *SCAPE, inviting anybody who felt that they had wasted their time to come back and inform her so immediately. Twelve folks confirmed up. One requested a refund. The session mentioned a terrific deal about her confidence within the work and her real perception in Singapore’s native movie scene.
Greater than a content material creator
What makes Annette’s story compelling is how persistently she has refused to be outlined by any single factor. She is a musician who writes within the electro-folk and energy ballad genres. She is a filmmaker with award-winning shorts to her identify. She is a comic who performs a number of characters with surgical precision. She is a author whose scripts carry actual social commentary beneath the humour. And he or she is somebody who constructed an viewers of over 245K on Instagram not by means of aesthetics or aspiration, however by means of sheer artistic character.
What comes subsequent
Dream Stall appears like the start of an extended story slightly than a vacation spot. Annette has spent over a decade laying groundwork throughout comedy, music, and movie, and every chapter has fed naturally into the following. No matter comes after the large display screen, it’s protected to say she’s going to strategy it the identical method she has approached every little thing else: together with her personal voice, her personal guidelines, and an excellent script.
Creators like Annette are a reminder of what real artistic funding seems like, and for manufacturers hoping to be a part of tales that really resonate, GetKobe makes it easy to seek out the best match. With a community of creators throughout each area of interest and tier, we take the guesswork out of discovering somebody whose viewers genuinely aligns along with your model, so each marketing campaign begins from a spot of actual relevance slightly than attain alone.
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