Tan was born in Singapore to Chinese-educated business parents who wanted her to study science or economics.[4] As a bilingual child, Tan read Charles Dickens and wuxia (swordfighting) novels by Jin Yong.[4] Of this period she has said: “Reading was my first escape, an immediate access to a larger world.”
As a teenager at Dunman High and Victoria Junior College, Tan wrote short stories and poems, sometimes on toilet paper squares she would flush away.[4] Tan said she was classified as “the oddball, the slacker".[5]
Tan lived in Jeonju, South Korea, for a year as part of the Asian Young Filmmakers Forum.[4] For the next 2 years, she lived in Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand. During this time, she formed a rock band called Century Ache[4] and had a shop at the Chatuchak Weekend Market where she sold T-shirts.[7] A Thai fortune-teller once said to Tan: “The gods are confused about where you sleep.”[8]
Tan started her career with short films which were nominated many times at the Singapore International Film Festival. She was awarded Best Southeast Asian Film for Dahdi, Best Director for Fonzi, and Special Jury Prize for 10 Minutes Later.[10] Her films are marked by a fascination with time and a bleak humour towards existence.[11]
In 2017, Tan wrote and directed her debut feature film, Pop Aye. The film is about an architect who unexpectedly reunites with his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. The pair embark on a road trip across the country towards the rural farm where they grew up together.[12]
Pop Aye premiered in competition at Sundance as the opening film of the World Dramatic selection, and was awarded a Special Jury Prize for Screenwriting. It went on to win the Golden Eye at the Zurich Film Festival for Best International Feature Film[13] and the VPRO Big Screen Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.[14]Pop Aye was the first Singaporean film to win a major award at Sundance[15] and Rotterdam Film Festival.[16] Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong noted Tan's achievement on social media.[17] Tan's success in filmmaking was also mentioned in Parliament in April 2017 by Ong Ye Kung, the Minister for Education.[18] The film was Singapore's official submission to the 2018 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[19]
Tan was nominated as a Singaporean of The Year by the Straits Times in 2017.[20]
