Winner of Esplanade’s Do It Ourselves (DIO) Docufilm Competition 2026 (Open category)
Directed and produced by Nur Raudah Ruzli and Syafiqah Muhammad Noh under Capunklang. Featuring Wax (Wax Guitar Services). Shot and edited by Nur Raudah Ruzli. Animated by Syafiqah Muhammad Noh.
"The guitars line up from the door to the kitchen." Wax has been running his guitar repair shop out of his home for over five years. No shopfront, no waiting room, just a workbench he built himself, surrounded by tools he thrifted along the way.
His love for the guitar started with his dad's playlists of nothing but guitar solos, and his first electric guitar in Primary Three. He only picked it up properly at sixteen, after his parents' divorce and seven house moves left him without one that worked. So, he fixed it himself, with a four-dollar soldering pen, and never really stopped.
That first repair grew into a trade that carried him through Singapore's punk, hardcore and grindcore scenes, and eventua...