[csaa-forum] THE LATEST CINEMA FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA: 24 FEB – 7 MARCH

[Ariel Heryanto]

The following event may of some interest to members of this list

REGIONAL INTERSECTIONS 
<http://www.nfsa.gov.au/whats_on/arc/calendar1170.html?panelNo=1170>

A SHOWCASE OF THE LATEST CINEMA FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA

24 FEB – 7 MARCH

The filmmaking of Australia’s own neighbourhood is little seen by local 
mainstream

audiences, apart from film festival and SBSTV screenings. Yet Thailand, 
Indonesia and the Philippines at least have long-standing popular 
filmmaking traditions that date back to before World War II, whilst 
Singapore was the birthplace of Shaw Brothers studios, and eventually 
the modern Hong Kong film industry.

The region’s also had a long tradition of passionate cinema and critical 
art cinema making and thinking. In the 1970s, a unique regional brand of 
‘Third Cinema’ realism emerged in the Philippines and Vietnam. Since the 
1980s, distinctive regional filmmaking has also begun to emerge on the 
international film circuit, whilst the region’s distinctive popular 
genres – chilling ghost stories, martial arts action movies, and the 
B-movie vigour of its commercial exploitation cinemas – also continues 
to find cult movie enthusiasm in the West.

The NFSA’s first annual showcase of our ‘local’ cinema is presented in 
collaboration with the Australian National University’s Southeast Asia 
Centre and the conference /Intersections of Area, Cultural/ /and Media 
Studies/ (by invitation only), to be held at the NFSA on 25 and 26 
February 2010.

Guests include leading Indonesian filmmakers Garin Nugroho and Riri Riza 
and the Thai documentary filmmaker Uruphong Raksasad.

/We acknowledge the assistance of The Ford Foundation./

/ /

PROGRAM

/ /

Wednesday 24 February, 7pm


      THE DREAMERS

(/Sang Pemimpi/) Dir: Riri Riza, Indonesia, 2009, tbc mins, 35mm, 
(unclassified 18+)

Riza and producer Mira Lesmana’s sequel to their Indonesian box office 
hit /The Rainbow Troops/ is again based on Andrea Hirata’s immensely 
popular novels about childhood in the remote Sumatran island of 
Belitung. The new film carries the story forward to high school days in 
the 1980s, as Ikal, Arai and Jimbon, all now teens, struggle with love 
and the passage to manhood. “We want to show how these teenagers stick 
with their dreams and fight against poverty, traditional values and 
actually make their dreams come true…” – Riri Riza. *Riri Riza and 
producer Mira Lesmana will introduce this Australian premiere screening 
and participate in a Q&A following the film.*


      Thursday 25 February, 7pm


      OPERA JAWA

Dir: Garin Nugroho, Indonesia/Austria, 2006, 120 mins, 35mm, 
(unclassified 18+)

One of seven films commissioned by festival guru Peter Sellars to 
commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, Indonesian director 
Garin Nugroho retells the ancient Sanskrit epic of Ramayana as a sensual 
Javanese tale of the love of two village potters fractured by the allure 
of power. Nugroho’s film combines the traditional and modernist in a 
blindingly colourful fusion of Gamelan melodies, Javanese shadow 
puppetry and traditional dance (by one of Madonna’s collaborators Eko 
Supriyanto), brought together with the sculpture and performance art of 
contemporary Yogyakarta. *Filmmaker *Garin Nugroho will introduce this 
Canberra premiere screening.**

Friday 26 February, 7pm

TALENTIME

Dir: Yasmin Ahmad, Malaysia, 2009, 119 mins, 35mm (unclassified 15+)

As teachers and students rush to pull a high school talent contest 
together, nothing seems like it will be right on the night. Except maybe 
the teen romance that’s budding between the deaf-mute son of a strict 
Indian widow and the contest’s rising star, the gentle daughter of a 
big-hearted and slightly zany Muslim family. In the delicate hands of 
the great director Yasmin Ahmad this Malaysian cross between /Romeo and 
Juliet/ and /High School Musical/ starts off as tender and funny 
rom-com, but builds into a deeply moving call for reconciliation between 
the diverse communities that make up a modern multicultural Asian 
society. The Malaysian box office hit of 2009 screens in honour of 
director Ahmad, who passed away soon after the film’s completion. 
Presented by The ANU University College of Asia and the Pacific. FREE 
admission, seats limited, bookings essential on phone 6248 2000.

Saturday 27 February, 2pm


      A POET

(/Puisi tak terkuburkan/) Dir: Garin Nugroho, Indonesia, 1996, 83 mins, 
video, (unclassified 18+)

Shot on video in seven days, Nugroho’s work is still one of the few 
Indonesian films to confront Indonesia’s own ‘killing fields’ of 1965. 
Famous Aceh poet Ibrahim Kadir plays himself in the film, using the 
‘Didong’ style of traditional Acehnese poetic ballad to express the 
trauma of the thousands of Acehnese (and another estimated 500,000 plus 
across Indonesia) who were detained and murdered as suspected 
‘Communists’ by Indonesian military.


      Saturday 27 February, 4.30pm


      AGRARIAN UTOPIA

(/Sawan baan na/) Dir: Uruphong Raksasad, Thailand, 2009, 120 mins, 
(unclassified 18+)

Uruphong Raksasad gave up mainstream filmmaking to return to his North 
Thai rural roots, and a new career in the hybrid docudrama form. For his 
new work, Uruphong rented a local rice paddy and convinced two local 
families to work on the land with him over a number of seasons, 
meanwhile also building a relationship with a former sociologist gone 
back-to-nature and his own eccentric agricultural methods. The result is 
a hauntingly beautiful testament to a passing way of living off and with 
the land, and the winner of the UNESCO prize at the 2009 Asia- Pacific 
Screen Awards. *Uruphong Raksasad will introduce this Canberra premiere 
screening.*


      Saturday 27 February, outdoors (doors open 7pm, screening starts
      at sundown)


      THE SCREEN AT KAMCHANOD

(/Pee Chang Nang/) Dir: Songsak Mongkolthong, Thailand, 2007, 97 mins, 
35mm, (unclassified 18+)

In 1987, an outdoor movie screening in rural Thailand was reportedly 
attended by spirits, who emerged from the forest to watch and then 
suddenly disappeared. From this urban myth, director Mongkolthong has 
fashioned one of the most chilling hits of recent Thai horror cinema, 
resetting the story to a team of investigators who borrow the film print 
and a deserted Bangkok cinema to look for the truth – and find their 
screening being invaded by invisible patrons who just love to put their 
feet up on the seats! *Canberra** Premiere.*


      Sunday 28 February, 2pm


      AT THE END OF DAYBREAK

(/Sham moh/) Dir: Ho Yuhang, South Korea/ Hong Kong/ Malaysia, 2009, 94 
mins, 35mm, (unclassified 18+)

In a story that could be by S.E. Hinton or filmed by Nick Ray, 
working-class boy Chai loves middle-class schoolgirl Ying even more than 
his motorcycle. But he’s 23 and she’s 15. When they are found out, her 
greedy parents plot to blackmail his struggling alcoholic mother (a 
surprising bit of off-casting for HK action heroine Kara Hui) to pay for 
their childrens’ Australian university tuition. Ho Yuhang (/Rain Dogs/) 
is the master of a new sort of Malaysian neo-noir, using its gleam and 
style to comment on the class, gender and race relationships of a 
complex modern Asian society. *Australian Premiere.*


      Sunday 28 February, 4.30pm


      ADRIFT

(/Choi voi/) Dir: Bui Thac Chuyn, Vietnam, 2009, 102 mins, 35mm, 
(unclassified 18+)

Naïve middle-class bride Duyen marries taxi driver Hai for his 
good-looks and stable income. But Hai quickly retreats from the marital 
bed to his mother’s cooking, leaving Duyen to the consolation of writer 
friend Cam and her circle of Western-lifestyle hedonists. This is a tale 
from modern Hanoi City that surprises in its sensuality, art movie 
production design and erotic power. “After all the lean years in which 
Vietnamese cinema was kept alive by émigrés… here at last… a home-grown 
movie to compare with the best in current East-Asian cinema.” – Shelly 
Kraicer. *Australian premiere.*

Thursday 4 March, 2pm

THE MAIN THING IS TO STAY ALIVE

(/L’important c’est de rester vivant/) Dir: Roshane Saidnattar, 
France/Cambodia, 2009, 97 mins, video, (unclassified 18+)

A childhood slave and then survivor of refugee camps, before settling 
with her mother in France, Roshane Saidnattar returns to Cambodia to 
interview Khieu Samphan, the unrepentant and (when the film was shot) 
still at-liberty Khmer Rouge ideologue. Then, alongside her mother and 
own daughter, three generations make an emotional journey back to the 
hamlet where she’d been born into Year Zero. Saidnattar’s film is a 
stunning reminder of the stories still to be told about the “killing 
fields”. Canberra Premiere.

Thursday 4 March, 7pm

INDEPENDENCIA and MEMORIES OF A FORGOTTEN WAR

Total tunning time 129 mins. Both films (unclassified 18+)

Raya Martin’s /Independencia/ (Philippines, 2009, 76 mins, 35mm) is an 
allegory of 20th century Filipino history and America’s beginnings as a 
colonial power, shot in homage in the poverty-row style of Filipino 
studio movies of the 1930s, with a “…dreamlike poetry that… (shows) the 
spirit of resistance… to be mysterious, unending.” (Tony Rayns). 
Preceded by /Memories of a Forgotten War/ (USA/Philippines, 2001, 55 
mins, video); Sari Lluch Dalena 
<http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/persons/sari-lluch-dalena/> and 
Camilla Benolirao Griggers 
<http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/persons/camilla-benolirao-griggers/>’ 
docu-dramatisation of the brutal Philippine–American Wars of the early 
20^th century; little-known, but resonating in future US conflicts in 
Vietnam and Iraq. Canberra Premieres.

Saturday 6 March, 7pm

SLICE!

Dir: Kongkiat Komesiri, Thailand, 2009, 95 mins, 35mm, (unclassified 18+)

A red-suitcase wheeling killer is carving up Bangkok’s sleazy nouvelle 
riche and tourists. A deeply undercover cop remembers a bullied 
childhood friend from his village and begins to make a connection 
between the friend and the killer’s M.O. The cop’s no longer certain 
which side of the law he’s on, but his police handlers send him back 
home to track the lead down. An inventive genre diversion for its 
co-scriptwriters, Thai New Wave master directors Wisit Sasanatieng 
(/Tears of the Black Tiger/) and Kongkiat Komesiri, /Slice!/ gives the 
modern serial killer genre movie a very Thai twist. Canberra Premiere.

Sunday 7 March, 2pm

THE MAIN THING IS TO STAY ALIVE

(/L’important c’est de rester vivant/) Dir: Roshane Saidnattar, 
France/Cambodia, 2009, 97 mins, video, (unclassified 18+)

Year Zero survivor Roshane Saidnattar makes an emotional journey back to 
the Cambodian hamlet where she was a born, confronting the memories and 
the perpetrators of a childhood as a Khmer Rouge child slave. Canberra 
Premiere.


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