Shutdown

Across Singapore, a growing number of teenagers are quietly vanishing from society. Behind closed doors and hidden in the shadows of Singapore’s skyscrapers, they retreat into extreme isolation, cutting off friends, family and the outside world for months, and sometimes years.

Known in Japan as hikikomori, extreme social withdrawal is an issue now emerging in Singapore. But behind every shutdown lies something deeper – fear, shame, anxiety and families struggling to understand how the people they love slipped away. 

Filmed over eight months with unprecedented access, SHUTDOWN follows four Singaporean youths living through different stages of social withdrawal, alongside the parents and social workers fighting to reach them. 

From painful relapses to emotional breakdowns, to fragile breakthroughs and moments of hope, the series enters a hidden world rarely seen in Singapore, asking not only why these youths disappeared, but what it truly takes to bring them back.