here - Singapore Art Museum

Transcription

10 April – 3 May
Moving Image Gallery, SAM at 8Q
CONTENTS
The Southeast Asian Film
Festival celebrates its fifth year
with an exciting presentation of
the newest and most compelling
cinematic work emerging from
the region. A line-up of films
and post-screening discussions
from emerging and veteran
directors will provide a diverse,
engaging view into essential
aspects of contemporary
Southeast Asia. A celebration
of independent filmmaking, the
Festival provides a space for
intercultural and philosophical
sharing, and for art and film
friendships to form.
3
2
Festival Screening Schedule
44
SNAKESKIN
4
Love, Devotion and (no) Surrender...
By Philip Cheah
46
2030
48
Riddles of My Homecoming
8
The Great Wheel of Time
By Sam I-shan
50
Wukan: The Flame of Democracy
14
The Last Executioner
52
NOVA
16
The Search for Weng Weng
54
About the Curators
18
Fluid Boundaries
55
About the Organiser
20
The Look of Silence
56
General Information
22
Sparks
24
Vanishing Point
26
Chasing Waves
28
Garuda Power: The Spirit Within
30
Aimless
32
K’na the Dreamweaver
34
Fundamentally Happy
36
JALANAN
38
Jade Miners
40
Justice
42
So Be It
FILM
DIRECTOR
YEAR
COUNTRY
RUNTIME
RATING
POST-SCREENING DISCUSSION
Fri, 10 Apr
Tom Waller
2014 Thailand
95 min
M18
Tom Waller (Director)
7:30pm
10 April – 3 May
Moving Image Gallery, Level 2,
SAM at 8Q
$10* for each film screening.
25% off with purchase of 5
or more SEAFF 2015 tickets ($7.50* per screening)
*Excludes SISTIC fee.
Concessions available.
Tickets are available from SISTIC.
Sat, 11 Apr
Australia
Andrew Leavold
2013
96 min
PG13
5:00pm
/Philippines
Andrew Leavold (Director)
Daniel Palisa (Producer)
Sat, 11 Apr
Fluid Boundaries
7:30pm Vladimir Todorovic (Director)
Daniel Rudi Haryanto
(Director)
Mun Jeonghyun, Vladimir Todorovic and 2014
Daniel Rudi Haryanto Indonesia
/Serbia/Singapore 87 min
PG13
/South Korea
Denmark
Sun, 12 Apr
The Look of Silence
Joshua Oppenheimer 2014 /Finland/Indonesia 99 min
3:00pm
/Norway/UK
NC16
Sun, 12 Apr
5:30pm
M18
Sparks
Giancarlo Abrahan
2014
Philippines
120 min
Giancarlo Abrahan (Director)
Fri, 17 Apr
Netherlands
Jakrawal Nilthamrong
Vanishing Point
Jakrawal Nilthamrong 2015
100 min M18
7:30pm /Thailand(Director)
Sat, 18 Apr
Charliebebs Gohetia
Chasing Waves
Charliebebs Gohetia
2015 Philippines
92 min
PG
5:00pm(Director)
Sat, 18 Apr
7:30pm Garuda Power:
The Spirit Within
Bastian Meiresonne 2014
France/Indonesia 77 min
NC16
Sun, 19 Apr
3:00pm
Aimless
Pham Nhue Giang
2013
Vietnam
M18
87 min
Sun, 19 Apr
Ida Anita del Mundo
2014 Philippines
85 min
PG
5:30pm Ida Anita del Mundo
(Director)
Fri, 24 Apr
Fundamentally Happy
7:30pm Tan Bee Thiam
2015 Singapore
60 min
NC16
and Lei Yuan Bin
Tan Bee Thiam (Director)
Lei Yuan Bin (Director)
Sat, 25 Apr
5:00pm
JALANAN
Daniel Ziv
2013
Indonesia
107 min
NC16
Sat, 25 Apr
7:30pm Jade Miners
Midi Z
2015
Myanmar/Taiwan 104 min
PG13
www.singaporeartmuseum.sg/SEAFF
Sun, 26 Apr
3:00pm
Justice
Joel Lamangan
2014
Philippines
120 min
R21
#SEAFF2015
Sun, 26 Apr
Kongdej
So Be It
2014 Thailand
5:30pm Jaturanrasmee
85 min
PG
Fri, 1 May
Portugal
SNAKESKIN
Daniel Hui
2014
7:30pm/Singapore
105 min
Limited seating.
For ticket availability at the door,
please call SISTIC at 6348 5555.
Daniel Hui (Director)
Sat, 2 May
Nghiem-Minh
2030
2014 Vietnam
98 min
M18
5:00pm
Nguyen-Vo
Sat, 2 May
Arnel Mardoquio
2013 Philippines
82 min
R21
7:30pm World Premiere
International Premiere
Yam Palma
(Assistant Director)
Sun, 3 May
3:00pm
Wukan: The Flame
of Democracy
Lynn Lee
2013 Singapore
90 min
NC16
and James Leong
Sun, 3 May
5:30pm NOVA
Nik Amir Mustapha
2014
Malaysia
106 min
NC16
Love,
Devotion
and (no)
Surrender...
by Philip Cheah
Submitting to the Lord used to be all the rage.
Sadly, it seems to me…it still is.
In the no-holds-barred spirit of the 60s,
everything had to be experimented with,
every experience tested, even the experience
of spirituality. “That was an important time in
the ‘60s,” said jazz guitarist John McLaughlin,
leader of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. “We were
all trying to answer big questions: Who are we?
What is real? What is the meaning of life? The
Beatles, The Beach Boys – people were looking
East for inspiration.” Hence Love, Devotion and
Surrender, the album that McLaughlin recorded
with guitar legend Carlos Santana, echoing the
teachings of their guru, Sri Chinmoy.
Film still from The Last Executioner
Chinmoy advocated divine love, divine devotion,
and divine surrender. He defined divine love as
self-offering and self-expansion. He promoted
a middle path where the seeker has the chance
to renounce, or transform, the negative elements
that obstruct a union with the Divine. Chinmoy
said: “We are all seekers, and our goal is the
same: to achieve inner peace, light and joy, to
become inseparably one with our Source, and
to lead lives full of true satisfaction.”
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Even then as today, that struggle between
surrender and self-determination persists, just
as the struggle between independence and
co-option desperately rages. Each side posits its
rationale. Chinmoy argues that surrender is NOT
surrender. Surrender, in the spiritual sense is
transformative – “when a tiny drop enters into
the ocean, we cannot trace the drop,” he says,
“It becomes the mighty ocean.” Today, that
has become the attraction of the monolithic
whole, to be part of the all-encompassing.
Every little drop is better off not being a drop
but a potential ocean. In short, surrender if you
must, if you will, but just surrender. It’s your
best choice.
Besides, the choices of not surrendering are just
too painful. In Joel Lamangan’s Justice, superstar
Nora Aunor practically inhabits the film by her
masterful rendition of a slowly, corrupting soul.
Her surrender to power and wealth reflects
a soul that was numb a long time ago. In a
revealing scene, Aunor witnesses a brutal fight
while having lunch. She glances over casually
then turns back to concentrate on her meal.
pick up a gun to support the livelihood of his
family. But the periodic violence becomes a
nightmare that requires Buddhist intercession.
Surrender to the brutality of making a living
leads to another brutality, that of being
Thailand’s last gun-toting executioner. From
being a rock’n’roll musician, Chavoret Jaruboon
(in Tom Waller’s The Last Executioner) had to
Surrender to family and tradition haunts K’na, a
T’boli princess in Southern Philippines, who submits
to a pre-arranged marriage to end a century-old
clan war. Even so, in Ida Anita del Mundo’s K’na
the Dreamweaver, violence still erupts.
Film still from K’na the Dreamweaver
5
Daniel Rudi Haryanto, Vladimir Todorovic and
Mun Jeonghyun’s Fluid Boundaries attest to the
compromises that a multitude of people had to
endure to find shelter – from the Vietnamese
boat people of the 1970s who landed in
Indonesia to the beleaguered Joseon people,
residing in Japan, who had to choose between
North and South Korea.
In Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin’s
Fundamentally Happy, paedophilia is not such
sweet surrender. Or is it? What happens when
memory plays tricks on you? What is it that
you remember is real and what is it that is not?
Taken on a larger scale, Joshua Oppenheimer’s
The Look of Silence looks at a whole country’s
national amnesia. Like the adult paedophilia
victim in Fundamentally Happy, the few surviving
victims and the masses of victims’ families live
with suppressed memories, especially when
the killers are walking around, and when large
numbers of them remain in power. How do you
then not surrender to the bad memory? With a
look of silence? That’s what one victim’s family
attempts to do. But even when they confront
the late killer’s family with an autobiographical
book detailing his killing spree, his children and
wife deny the fact.
In a more extreme fashion, Alfad, an overseas
worker returns to Mindanao as a ghost in Arnel
Mardoquio’s Riddles of My Homecoming.
He visits his homeland teetering on the brink
between dream and despair. His spirit awakens
his people to rise up. That similar emotion is
captured in Daniel Hui’s SNAKESKIN, where
suppressed memories feed a dead cult leader’s
mass power, and only the ghost of truth stands
as light to the darkness. What happens when
a professor falls in love with his ghostly muse?
In Giancarlo Abrahan’s Sparks, truth will keep
haunting you till it becomes flesh. Similarly in
Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Vanishing Point, the
karmic wheel keeps on turning till you see it
for what it is.
For the village folk in Lynn Lee and James
Leong’s Wukan: The Flame of Democracy,
there is no more surrender. After losing
everything to a corrupt system that made
land grabs a pastime, they won the right for
local elections. But after the dream, come the
morning and then the nightmare. For the two
kids in Charliebebs Gohetia’s Chasing Waves,
getting forced off their land and relocated to
the seaside is the dream come true. But not
for the adults around them. For them, the
nightmare has just begun.
Film still from Fundamentally Happy
And what if you had to chase your shooting
star? For Berg in Nik Amir Mustapha’s NOVA,
it’s the last chance to see and film the UFO
that he saw during his school days. But it’s also
his last chance to feel the love that he felt for
his friends and his devotion to being a serious
filmmaker. While they all tell him to surrender
to reality, he knows in his heart that this is not
the time to…
In Midi Z’s Jade Miners, poor Burmese men
are forced to take up illegal mining in the
rebel Kachin state where sporadic fighting still
occurs. Between dodging the military and the
prospect of roof cave-ins, they surrender to the
interminable drudgery of their existence.
6
Film still from Riddles of My Homecoming
7
The Great
Wheel of Time
Film still from
Fluid Boundaries
By Sam I-shan
of filmic time and space, they explore the
relationships between lived realities and
established truths, as well as cause and effect,
and interrogate how legitimacy is constructed
and authority validated.
The medium of film allows for the telling
of expansive epics and small stories alike,
and over the years, the Southeast Asian Film
Festival has played host to many independent
directors and film narratives that highlight
the alternative, minor or marginal. While it is
conventional wisdom that history is authored
by the victors because they are the ones who
determine the framework from which stories
spring and knowledge is categorised, it should
be remembered that anything that now seems
self-evident was in a former time unknown.
All stories called historical truths were once
new, and originated from particular times
and places. Their present positions are secured
because the justifications for their practice
were likely built into the very process of their
codification. This suggests that rather than
thinking about the past, present and future in
terms of dominance and marginality, it might
be more productive to think of all realities
as sharing similar narrative traditions. Before
something ‘real’ exists as narrative, it must
be inspired, invented and ordered.
Co-directed by Mun Jeonghyun, Vladimir
Todorovic and Daniel Rudi Haryanto,
the film Fluid Boundaries (2014) shows how
the circumstances of history change the way
that an individual locates him or herself as
a subject in space. Indeed, it was the fate of
circumstance (with the help of film festival
circuits) that led these three directors to meet
and share video letters that eventually became
this film, which present a range of individuals
whose common characteristics seem to be their
displacement onto or across border territories.
As we follow their stories, we start to wonder
whether perhaps this is, in fact, the more
usual way of being. Mun’s uncle, an older
naturalised Korean-Japanese man, retains his
‘second-class’ legal status as a Joseon in Japan
so as to keep his ties with North Korea, where
some immediate family members still reside.
When his sister there passes away, he changes
his citizenship to South Korean so that he can
visit a country that had not even been established
at the time of his birth. In this case, the principles
Three experimental films in this year’s
festival investigate these fundamental premises
in strange and compelling ways. Using the
aesthetic lexicon of cinema and the logic
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of universality and equality that underpin the
ideals of citizenship come head to head with
the geopolitically-created issue of identity and
the equally powerful pull of identification via
blood ties. These seemingly abstract principles
find concrete articulation in the way his uncle’s
accent, vocabulary and gestures palpably but
almost unconsciously change as he moves from
place to place, assuming different linguistic
inflections and constituents, and even altering
the way that he bows.
In another story, we meet a lonely last witness
to an almost-forgotten piece of Indonesian
history: a resident of one of the Riau Islands
once occupied by hundreds of thousands
of Indochinese refugees between 1979 and
1996, who were passing through either to be
repatriated, or sent on to countries such as the
United States or Australia. A wiry Indonesian
man, our guide to this ghost town, walks
through the landscape pointing at various
areas once occupied by people and buildings,
but now overtaken by scrub and grassland.
The land may be missing the vestiges of
habitation, but the experience of those years
has clearly made its mark, which we observe
when he speaks for some time in Vietnamese
at the end of his account. Slightly self-conscious
at the start, the unfamiliar-sounding syllables
soon roll off his tongue with native ease, and
he becomes for a moment, possessed by other
pasts and selves. What these stories point to
is that the effects and circumstances of history
linger most on the body, and affect one’s
identity in a way that is both locational and
locutional. Their utterances are moments that
reveal the trace of history but also reveal the
points at which history itself can be marked:
in the telling of it.
9
Film stills from Vanishing Point
it simultaneously permits for great dynamism
as individuals have a million and one possibilities
to make decisions and perform acts that could
change all that is to come.
Like the other Thai films in the line-up this year,
Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Vanishing Point (2015)
deals with Buddhist concepts such as karma
and the liberation of self. Karma’s temporal
frame of reference is both cyclical and causal,
as it proposes that the kind of life a person
currently has is an accumulative effect of their
past actions, and that their future lives will
likewise be a result of what their deeds are
in the present moment. This teleological notion
of time and fixed framework of cause and
consequence appears deeply fatalistic; however
10
Two main characters can initially be discerned
from the film’s elliptical structure: a journalist
and a factory owner. The journalist, a lonely
figure whose casual companion is an older sex
worker, follows the police as they investigate
and reconstruct crime scenes. Meanwhile
the factory owner, isolated from his wife and
young daughter, has an affair with one of his
employees. Revealed to be parallel figures, these
two protagonists are depicted in a series of
encounters with the other characters in the film,
which in addition to those already mentioned,
include a monk, a manservant and a mysterious
old woman. The connections between them
are circumstantial and almost diffident, based
as much on silence, expression and gestures
as they are on encounters and engagement.
Vanishing Point may be premised on karmic
time, which is teleological, but in the film, time
is out of joint in many ways. Only upon piecing
the various narratives together do we realise
that what appears at the beginning of the film
is what devastatingly takes place at a later time,
and sequences in which dreams are recounted
and visions seen, together with a strange
postlude, may exist at odds with the time
of the film’s universe. The monk’s vision, for
instance, has a peculiar correspondence to a
crime committed, while the old woman is at
once a harbinger of disaster for the journalist
and factory owner, a figment of the monk’s
dream, and also possibly a transformed version
of one of the other characters in the film.
These intricate connections and overlaps are
not metaphorical, but have real and terrible
consequences like iniquity, assault, cursedness
and death. Like the partially autobiographical
car accident that brackets the film, destiny
hinges on a moment. For the viewer, this
leads to a two-part realisation: not only does
revelation arise from the way that the film has
been structured to unfold, but every individual
within it has a demonstrable effect upon the
existence of others. The film thus expresses
‘karmic’ structure through the way the past,
present and future events of its narrative affect
each other until it becomes hard to tell them
apart. Furthermore, the film’s characters – and
even the entities within their own narrative
inventions – are given agency to the extent that
the stories, dreams, testimonies and recollections
that they relate may themselves be changing
reality even as they are being uttered. This is a
powerful premise: that to tell something is to
make it real.
Elaborating on the politics of aesthetics,
Jacques Rancière states that “writing histories
and writing stories come under the same
regime of truth”.1 In other words, there is
no distinction between the presentation of
facts and the way that stories are invented,
as models for creating fact and fiction have
come to assume approximate if not identical
structures of meaning-making. In the same
way that the fictive consists of a combination
of plausible arrangements of plot and archetype,
history is now no longer ‘what happened’,
but a series of elucidations by different parties
about what they think really happened. Citing
how documentary films, for instance, combine
“different types of traces” such as interviews,
archives, and documentation “in order to
suggest possibilities for thinking this story
or history,” Rancière concludes that “the real
must be fictionalised in order to be thought”.2
This is nowhere more apparent than in Daniel
Hui’s hybrid, experimental film SNAKESKIN
(2014). Like several of the other festival offerings
this year, the temporal and geographical logic
of the film unfolds gradually, and turns out
to be not what it initially seems. The framing
narrative of the film is set in 2066, where the
primary narrator is the sole survivor of a strange
cult whose members all perished on an island
many years ago. The leader of this cult was the
narrator’s grandfather, who is also cast, among
other things, as a descendant of colonialists,
a fearsome prophet, and a transfiguring leader.
Like many dystopian fictions, the film is rooted
in details of history as well as the present, where
we ‘trace’ footage of familiar city streets, partautobiographical, part-invented testimonies by
interview subjects, and selected historical facts.
While this structure means the film shares some
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qualities of the so-called fiction documentary
film or work of creative non-fiction, it is more
interesting to see its narrative strategy as a way
to unpack the politics of memory, and interrogate
how the past can be made to “appear as simply
a normalised modality of [the] present”.3
Three ‘founding myths’ structure the fable
told in the film: the story of Sang Nila Utama,
the founding of Singapore by Sir Stamford
Raffles and the formation of the People’s
Action Party, presently the dominant political
party in Singapore, and in power since the
country’s independence. While the sequence
of these skeletal facts is not contested,
SNAKESKIN, like Vanishing Point, interrogates
causality through the logic of cinematic time.
It proposes that our understanding of how we
got to where we are, can be transformed by
materially rearranging what we think we know,
which would change the relationship between
cause and effect, and irrecoverably alter the
structure of meaning. However, the narrator
warns us that these very same fragments that
make up the film that the audience is looking
at, are “evil when they are arranged in order”,
though the nature of this darkness is never
equivocally pronounced, in line with the film’s
polyphonic perspectives. This notion of the ‘evil’
of making order out of fragmented materials
returns us to Rancière, who describes how
unchecked words that escape being controlled
1
2
3
4
Film stills from SNAKESKIN
12
and channelled by authorities toward the
people they wish to address, may end up in free
circulation. When this happens, these words will
not be able to “produce collective bodies”, but
will instead “introduce lines of fracture [. . .]
into imaginary collective bodies”. Those in power
might fear such a disorder, as it would “contribute
to the formation of political subjects that challenge
the given distribution of the sensible”.4
This then, is perhaps the real threat of this elusive
‘evil’, which is not so much that the fragments
of history can be arranged in order, but rather,
that they might be arranged in an order that
is not accepted as established. The hope that
this might happen, and the unfeasibility of it
ever taking place, is symbolised by an enduring
conceit in the film: time travel. It is never
completely clear if the characters manage to
achieve this gently utopic fantasy, which may
be the only reasonable response in the face of
an endless cycle of antecedence. Since it may
not be possible to journey at will back and
forth through time, the only way we have left to
revisit the rigidity of history and the obduracy of
truth is to obsessively circle around it, telling and
re-telling these tales from as many perspectives
as possible. Such a contrapuntal approach not
only makes room for the co-existence of multiple
temporalities and different historiographic scales,
but also gives each their respective space to
grow in power, scope and dimension.
Jacques Rancière. The Politics of Aesthetics, trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London: Bloomsbury, 2006), 34.
Jacques Rancière. The Politics of Aesthetics, 34.
Arjun Appadurai. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalisation
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 31
Jacques Rancière. The Politics of Aesthetics, 36.
13
Fri 10 Apr / 7:30pm
Singapore Premiere
Tom Waller, 2014, Thailand, 95 min
Thai with English subtitles, M18 (Mature content)
Post-screening discussion with director Tom Waller
Inspired by real events, this film tells the story
of Chavoret Jaruboon, the last person in Thailand
whose job was to execute death row prisoners
with a machine gun, before the legislation of
the lethal injection method in 2002. A wild
rock-and-roller in his youth, Jaruboon becomes
a state prison guard in a bid for stability and
respectability. However, when he is appointed
executioner, he is plunged into a never-ending
conflict between his morality and his duty. How
is it possible to reconcile the good karma that
comes from being a dedicated family man and
employee, and the bad karma that comes from
being a killer? Showing life at its most beautiful
and death at its most surreal, this film features
a powerful performance by Vithaya Pansringarm.
Tom Waller is Bangkok-born and of
Thai Buddhist and Irish Catholic heritage.
He has produced films for 12 years, including
Soi Cowboy (2008), which was selected for
Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.
His film Mindfulness and Murder (2011) was
nominated for five Thai National Film Awards
including Best Director and Best Film. His
most recent film The Last Executioner (2014)
premiered in competition at the Shanghai
International Film Festival, where it won
the Best Actor Golden Goblet for lead
Vithaya Pansringarm.
Director’s Statement
I first read about Chavoret Jaruboon in his
Bangkok Post obituary in May 2012. What struck
me was that he was clearly an ordinary man who
led an extraordinary life. For a man who wanted
to be a rock ‘n’ roll singer, becoming a prison
executioner would seem like an unlikely vocation.
This is a person who went from holding a guitar
to holding a gun – it was as if at times, he was
living a double life. In his later years, he even
became a minor celebrity in Thailand as a guest
on game shows and chat shows, celebrated for
performing his duties in taking the lives of 55
condemned prisoners. Perhaps for Chavoret,
this was fame for all the wrong reasons. But yet
he was a man who had led his life with a sense
of duty, pride and diligence for his job, not once
questioning why or how the condemned came
to end up on death row. How does a man given
such a task of taking so many lives reconcile
with his belief in karma? This was initially what
interested me most in making this film.
However, after speaking to his widow and
family, I realised there were different layers to
him. Not only was he a dutiful servant of the
state but he was also a wonderful husband and
a loving family man. After all, raising his family
was, in many ways, the reason he became an
executioner. It paid more bills than playing
the guitar would have, but it ultimately led to
him living with demons inside his head. Often
troubled by these ‘spirits’ that haunted him,
Chavoret turned to monks for moral guidance,
seeking to make amends for his acts of killing.
Don Linder’s screenplay tells the story of
Chavoret’s extraordinary life with much panache,
illustrating his inner turmoil and conflicted efforts
to reconcile with his karma.
Print source: De Warrenne Pictures Co. Ltd
Contact:[email protected]
14
15
Sat 11 Apr / 5:00pm
Singapore Premiere
Andrew Leavold, 2013, Australia/Philippines, 96 min
English and Tagalog with English subtitles, PG13 (Brief nudity)
Post-screening discussion with director Andrew Leavold and producer Daniel Palisa
This film is part of the festival sidebar Action Asia: The Wild Wild Years of Asian Film Action.
Standing just under 85 centimetres, Weng
Weng was a Filipino James Bond who was
adept at karate chops, machine-gun wielding,
and the art of wooing a woman. An enigma
even to those who have worked with him, his
cinematic reign as the midget Agent 00 was
an outrageous novelty that plucked him from
complete obscurity and then returned him to
it just as quickly. What was he like? When and
how did he pass away? Leapfrogging from one
eccentric character to the next, this documentary
features directors, producers, actors, stuntmen,
dwarf waiters, and even Imelda Marcos herself,
each with their unique place in Filipino cinema.
Proving that reality sometimes really is stranger
than fiction, this detective story is an engaging
history of Filipino B-grade cinema and the
business of film, power and politics.
16
Photo by Cesar Hernando
Andrew Leavold owned and managed
Trash Video, the largest cult video rental store
in Australia, from 1995 to 2010. He is also a
filmmaker, author, researcher, film festival curator
(for the Brisbane International Film Festival and
Melbourne Underground Film Festival), musician,
TV presenter, and fan of genre cinema. His debut
feature film was Lesbo A Go Go (2003) and he is
the co-writer of action script Blood Red Sea, and
the co-founder of production company Death
Rides a Red Horse. He is completing a book
called Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys: A History
of Pulp Filmmaking in the Philippines. Eight years
in the making, The Search for Weng Weng is his
latest film project.
Back in the early 90s, watching a two-foot nine
Filipino improbably named Weng Weng, as a
miniature James Bond, punching someone in the
nuts, and then running between their legs was,
for me, one of those life-changing moments.
Weng Weng and For Your Height Only hinted
at a parallel universe filled with strange and
exotic films just waiting to be uncovered. I was
immediately hooked, but wanted to know more.
Who was Weng Weng? Where did he come
from, and what happened to him? Were there
other Weng Weng films, and was he still alive?
Not even the internet could shed light on what
appeared to be a forgotten life.
The obsession grew until 2006, when I was
invited to a film festival in Manila. I went with a
video camera in one hand, determined to uncover
once and for all the mystery of Weng Weng.
Weng Weng’s story, it turns out, is even more
extraordinary than I could have ever imagined:
real life secret agent and international superstar
who beat George Lucas at the box office. The rest
of the story was equally heartbreaking, bizarre,
and exhilarating. The Search For Weng Weng is
part personal quest, gonzo travelogue, detective
story, and Philippine B film history.
The Pinoy B film was understandably ghettoised
by its own academics, filmmakers and audiences
alike as an entirely disposable and nutritionally
empty confection. I must admit I sensed a certain
degree of resistance and puzzlement to my initial
burst of blissfully innocent and self-absorbed
enthusiasm for Weng Weng and his fellow B
film contemporaries. This, I discovered, after
immersing myself more fully in their collective
consciousness, is akin to Australia’s own ‘cultural
cringe’, borne out of a post-colonial nation’s
need for serious currency in high art filmic
dialogue. Lo and behold! Weng Weng was
under their very nose, a two-foot-nine time
capsule, who reveals far more about their own
pop cinema history than they ever imagined.
Print source: Death Rides A Red Horse (Andrew Leavold)
17
Sat 11 Apr / 7:30pm
Fluid Boundaries
Singapore Premiere
Mun Jeonghyun, Vladimir Todorovic and Daniel Rudi Haryanto, 2014,
Indonesia/Serbia/Singapore/South Korea, 87 mins
Bahasa Indonesia/Vietnamese/Korean/Afrikaans/Serbian with English subtitles,
PG13 (Some mature content)
Post-screening discussion with directors Vladimir Todorovic and Daniel Rudi Haryanto
In a series of video letters, a director from
Indonesia, Korea and Singapore reflect on
socio-political, cultural and geographical
borders and share stories of people who cross
them. Workers of different nationalities flock
to Singapore to find a job, renewing their
employment passes in Malaysia. Others find
themselves frequently crossing the border
demarcating East Timor and Indonesia.
Desperate realities face an immigrant family
in South Africa, while a person who is left
behind in a Vietnamese refugee camp in
Indonesia recounts his past. Another reminisces
about tragic life of his uncle, who had to change
his nationality from Joseon to Korean. What are
the threads that tie these different individuals
and their varied stories together? Through the
lives of these people and the unpredictable
twists of modern history, we witness the
rigidity of borders melt away.
Mun Jeonghyun has been with P.U.R.N
Production, an independent documentary
production since 2003. His film Grandmother’s
Flower (2007) won best documentary in the
Busan International Film Festival and he was
invited to the Berlin Film Festival Forum. His film
Yongsan (2010), won an Award of Excellence
in the Yamagata International Documentary
Film Festival.
Vladimir Todorovic is an Assistant
Professor at the School of Art, Design and
Media, NTU, Singapore. His short film Silica-esc
(2010) won Special Mention for the category of
Computer Art at the Japan Media Arts Festival.
His debut feature Water Hands premiered at the
Rotterdam International Film Festival’s Bright
Future section in 2011. He released his second
feature Disappearing Landscape in 2013.
Daniel Rudi Haryanto was born in
Semarang, Central Java, 1978. In 1999, he helped
to establish Cinema Society, an organisation
focused on Indonesian cinema studies and
research. His feature documentary Prison and
Paradise (2010) won the Director Guild of
Japan award at the Yamagata Documentary
International Film Festival 2011 and a Special
Mention at the 8th CinemAsia Film Festival 2015.
18
Directors’ Statement
The three of us kept meeting at various festivals.
We started thinking about possible topics and
what we could do to facilitate the collaboration
between the different countries where we live:
South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia. After a
while, we came up with the idea of using video
letters that we would send to each other, and
in that way, create a flowing narrative. We are
interested to explore how our story changed
based on the collective storytelling method
we used. By doing this film collaboratively,
we not only discuss and showcase the topic of
‘fluid boundaries’ and the life surrounding those
people, but also in the process, create a fluid
interaction between ourselves. We hope this
will show and symbolise the way we interact
across our own borders.
Print source: CinemaDal Distribution Department (Hyejin Lee)
19
Sun 12 Apr / 3:00pm
The Look of Silence
Singapore Premiere
Joshua Oppenheimer, 2014, Denmark/Finland/Indonesia/Norway/UK, 99 min
Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese with English subtitles, NC16
The 2012 documentary The Act of Killing was
a troubling, surreal look at a forgotten chapter
of Indonesian history: the killing of more than
one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese
and intellectuals following the overthrow of
the government by the military in the 1960s.
This film delves deeper into this dark legacy,
but focuses this time on the perspective of the
victims rather than the victors of history. Village
optometrist Adi’s older brother was one of these
victims, and as he quizzes his patients about
their memories of this violent era, he discovers
the story of how his brother was murdered, and
that some of his killers are still in positions of
great power. Adi decides to confront each of
them, asking them how they can possibly live
side by side with their victims’ loved ones.
Joshua Oppenheimer is an American
based in Denmark where he is a partner at
the production company Final Cut for Real.
Recipient of a 2014 MacArthur ‘Genius’
Fellowship, Oppenheimer has worked for over
a decade with militias, death squads and their
victims. His debut feature-length film, The
Act of Killing (2012), won 72 international
awards, including the European Film Award
2013, BAFTA 2014, Asia Pacific Screen Award
2013, Berlinale Panorama Audience Award
2013 and the Guardian Film Award 2014 for
Best Film. His latest film, The Look of Silence
(2014), premiered in competition at the 72nd
Venice Film Festival, where it won five awards,
including the Grand Prize of the Jury, the
international critics award (FIPRESCI Prize),
and the European film critics award (FEDEORA
Prize). Oppenheimer is artistic director of the
International Centre for Documentary and
Experimental Film, University of Westminster.
Photos by Lars Skree @ Final Cut for Real
The Act of Killing exposed the consequences for all
of us when we build our everyday reality on terror
and lies. The Look of Silence explores what it is
like to be a survivor in such a reality. Making any
film about survivors of genocide is to walk into a
minefield of clichés, most of which serve to create
a heroic (if not saintly) protagonist with whom we
can identify, thereby offering the false reassurance
that, in the moral catastrophe of atrocity, we
are nothing like the perpetrators. But presenting
survivors as saintly in order to reassure ourselves
that we are good is to use survivors to deceive
ourselves. It is an insult to survivors’ experience,
and does nothing to help us understand what it
means to survive atrocity, what it means to live a
life shattered by mass violence, and to be silenced
by terror. To navigate this minefield of clichés, we
had to explore silence itself.
The result, The Look of Silence, is, I hope, a
poem about a silence borne of terror – a poem
about the necessity of breaking that silence, but
also about the trauma that comes when silence
is broken. Maybe the film is a monument to
silence: a reminder that although we want to
move on, look away and think of other things,
nothing will make whole what has been broken.
Nothing will wake the dead. We must stop and
acknowledge the lives destroyed, and strain to
listen to the silence that follows.
Print source: Cinephil (Philippa Kowarsky)
20
21
Sun 12 Apr / 5:30pm
Sparks
INTERNATIONAL Premiere
Giancarlo Abrahan, 2014, Philippines, 120 min
Tagalog with English subtitles, M18 (Sexual scenes)
Post-screening discussion with director Giancarlo Abrahan
It is summer. Jimmy and Issey are professors
at the University of the Philippines who have
been married for 25 years and are on the
brink of separation. Jimmy’s research work is
interrupted by an apparition who seems to be
an ex-girlfriend, to whom he is equally haunted
by and drawn to. Meanwhile, Issey goes on a
creative writing retreat where she is mentoring
young writers, and finds herself drawn to
university student Gab. When one of Gab’s
non-fiction pieces about his sexual awakening
comes to widespread attention, a scandal
ensues that puts everyone’s relationships under
a spotlight. The virtuoso performances of Eula
Valdez and Nonie Buencamino complement
Abrahan’s deftly written, absorbing screenplay,
and they are entirely convincing as two stillloving individuals enmeshed in the complexity
of a decades-long relationship.
Giancarlo Abrahan is a producer,
director, and writer. Primarily a screenwriter,
Abrahan is noted for his screenplays for Hannah
Espia’s Transit (Best Film, Cinemalaya IFF; Special
Mention, Busan International Film Festival New
Currents) and Whammy Alcazaren’s Islands
(Cinema One Originals Film Festival 2013). His
debut feature as director, Sparks, premiered at
the 10th Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival,
winning Best Director and Best Screenplay (for
Abrahan) and Best Actress (for Eula Valdes).
Also a creative director at production company
TEN17P, he is developing as co-writer-producer
and writer, two feature films with the support of
the Asian Cinema Fund Script Development Fund.
Sparks enters the world of the university and
examines how the true, the good, and the
beautiful pull the lives of teachers and students
alike. It is an intelligent world trying to make
sense of the ‘outside’ world. It is filled with
people who keep thinking and thinking of the
many contradictions in their lives.
In the film, we see how even the most brilliant
minds fail to comprehend this complexity,
especially when love is in the picture. Love
forces us to go against the world’s sense of
what is moral. The more we think about it,
and the more we feel about it, the more we
are forced to be untrue to ourselves.
They say that it will all make sense with
time. With Sparks, perhaps it is not about
understanding. Years may pass, yet there are
things that always remain a blur in our lives, like
ghosts that never cease to haunt us at night. No
matter how much we know of the world, there
are pains that never make sense. It is the truth,
it is a good thing, and it is beautiful that way.
Print source: TEN17P, Inc
Contact:
[email protected] (Giancarlo Abrahan)
[email protected] (Hannah Espia)
22
23
Fri 17 Apr / 7:30pm
Vanishing Point
Singapore Premiere
Jakrawal Nilthamrong, 2015, Netherlands/Thailand, 100 min
Thai with English subtitles, M18 (Sexual scenes)
Post-screening discussion with director Jakrawal Nilthamrong
The starting point of this experimental drama is
a disastrous car crash that took place more than
30 years ago. The film then follows two characters
whose lives intersect in tangential ways: an
idealistic young journalist who accompanies
police to crime scene reconstructions, and
a factory owner in a border town, who is
experiencing some family problems. Along the
way we meet his teenage daughter, a motherly
sex worker, a dreaming monk, and the film
slowly but surely reaches its denouement.
Wending through visions, tall tales and strange
sceneries, this meditative work always returns to
the notion of the karmic cycle and the idea that
every action taken and decision made affects the
course of one or many lives. Vanishing Point won
the Hivos Tiger Award at the International Film
Festival Rotterdam (2015).
24
Jakrawal Nilthamrong is an artist
and filmmaker. His work spans short films,
documentaries, video installations and feature
films. The themes of his work often relate to
Eastern philosophy in contemporary contexts,
and the local history of specific environments,
so as to establish dialogue among multiple
perspectives. His shorts, documentaries
and video installations have been shown in
international film festivals including Rotterdam,
Berlin, Toronto and Yamagata, as well as
exhibitions including the Taipei Biennial 2012
and SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul 2014. He
is currently a professor at Thammasat University,
Thailand. Unreal Forest (2010) was his debut
documentary feature and Vanishing Point
(2015) is his second feature.
17 September 1983 was a seemingly ordinary
day, except that it marked the moment when
several lives in my family changed forever. It was
the day that my parents were devastatingly
wounded from a car accident. At that time, my
father was a young military officer with a bright
future ahead of him. He was driving back from
a party one early evening to pick up the kids,
with my mother sitting by his side. Inebriated,
he stopped the car at a red light on top of one
rail track where there was no barrier put in place.
A train approached at full speed, hitting the car on
the driver’s side and dragging what remained of
the vehicle and its passengers for a long distance.
The opening image of Vanishing Point is the
front-page picture from the newspaper report
of my parents’ accident that day. I grew up with
that news photograph and my father’s fading
memory of the day before the accident.
After several months in recovery, my mother
resumed her normal life and work. But my father
suffered from severe brain damage, and he could
no longer return to the life he used to have. His
dashing career suddenly came to a halt. This
abrupt change had a big impact on my family.
I cannot imagine how my life and my family
would have turned out had there not been an
accident that day. But all these experiences have
made me who I am today. I invoke the story of
my father, and merge it with other tales inside
my head, into a story of two men who are
mirror images of each other. Actions lead to
consequences, and the karmic force has a pull
on all men just like gravity has to earth.
Print source: Diversion (Mai Meksawan)
25
Sat 18 Apr / 5:00pm
Chasing Waves
World Premiere
Charliebebs Gohetia, 2015, Philippines, 92 min
Visayan with English subtitles, PG (Some violence)
Post-screening discussion with director Charliebebs Gohetia
Editor of Brillante Medoza’s early landmark
works, Charliebebs Gohetia’s third directorial
feature sees him return to the Southern
Philippines. Set in remote community Panyan,
the story opens when young Sipat’s family is
forced by their landlord to leave the mountains
– where he has spent his entire life – to migrate
to the unfamiliar landscapes of the seaside.
Nervous but excited, Sipat is convinced that
his greatest dream of experiencing the beach
will be fulfilled. As he counts down the days
to his departure with his best friend En-En, he
is unaware of what the future will hold. The
semi-unexplored terrain of Barangay Tamugan
with its peaks, caves, falls and rivers forms a
dramatic backdrop to the natural, unaffected
performances by the child actors.
Charliebebs Gohetia started editing films
in 2005 when still a university student, working
on Brillante Mendoza’s Masseur, The Teacher,
Foster Child and Slingshot. He has edited for
Filipino filmmakers including Adolf Alix, Jr., Joel
Lamangan. Goheita’s debut feature The ‘Thank
You’ Girls competed at the Vancouver International
Film Festival and became a cult hit in the
Philippines. His sophomore film The Natural
Phenomenon of Madness (2011) screened at
the BFI London Film Festival and the Vancouver
International Film Festival and received five
nominations at the 2012 Gawad Urian 2012
including Best Picture and Best Screenplay.
His documentary, How to Make a Visayan
Chopsuey (2014) won Special Jury Mention
in October at the 1st Cine Totoo Philippine
International Documentary Film Festival.
His recent films are Love and Everything
After and Chasing Waves.
There is an unsettling contrast between
the city-dwellers’ obsession with materialism,
and the simple hopes of the people in the
countryside. While urbanites thrive on achieving
comfort, people in the rural areas are rooted
to what is basic, never longing for any excess.
I have been to the mountainous regions of the
southern Philippines where indigenous people
live. They have a certain kind of sincerity that
does not wither despite their lack of technology
or civilisation, terms that are defined by urban
standards. These people from the mountains,
26
having no access to luxury, have simple dreams
– like the story of these two children who have
never experienced going to the beach. But
they are being oppressed by greed from the
otherwise civilised and ruling class. It is a sad
reality, a continuous struggle.
It is apparent then that the class divide is still
apparent even in dreams and aspirations.
Print source: Charliebebs Gohetia
27
Sat 18 Apr / 7:30pm
Garuda Power: The Spirit Within
Singapore Premiere
Bastian Meiresonne, 2014, France/Indonesia, 77 min
Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles, NC16 (Some violence and gore)
This film is part of the festival sidebar Action Asia: The Wild Wild Years of Asian Film Action.
An incredible journey into Indonesia’s action
films from their beginnings in the 1920s up
to the latest international successes, this
documentary is an insight into one of the less
well-known cinematic action industries. Its
colourful history is closely related to the country’s
own annals of change and development, with
the mythical heroes and spectacular set-pieces
serving as escapism and indirect social critique
while representing the popular desires of the
tens of thousands of ordinary people who
enjoyed them over the years. This film features
hitherto unseen footage, rare images, unusual
poster art and interviews with top actors Barry
Prima, George Rudy and Willy Dozan, directors
Awyl Ackari and Imam Tantowi and action
choreographers including Edy Jonathan.
Bastian Meiresonne became interested
in Asian cinema while studying film in Paris.
He has written for many newspapers, magazines
and collaborative works and has published a
book about Japanese auteur Imamura Shohei.
Meiresonne serves as consultant for several
international film festivals, and is a long-time
collaborator for the Vesoul International Film
Festival of Asian Cinema (FICA). Garuda Power:
The Spirit Within is his first feature documentary.
I have been involved with Asian cinema for many years now and
Indonesian film in particular. More than just a simple dive into Indonesia’s
incredible movie history, Garuda Power is also intended as a portrayal of
its people. I hope this first-ever documentary on this genre will be the
starting point for many more exciting projects to come, while serving as
an alarm call for a specialised part of cultural heritage that is fast-vanishing
cultural heritage. I also hope you will enjoy viewing it as much as we loved
shooting it.
Print source: Shaya Production (Julien Thialon)
28
29
Sun 19 Apr / 3:00pm
Aimless
Singapore Premiere
Pham Nhue Giang, 2013, Vietnam, 87 min
Vietnamese with English subtitles, M18 (Sexual scene)
Pham Nhue Giang graduated from the
Hanoi University of Cinematography and the
Hanoi University of Architecture. Since her debut
film, Le Petit Culi (1992), she has directed many
award-winning TV series and feature films.
Among them is The Deserted Valley (2001),
which won the Silver Lotus Prize at the 13th
Vietnam National Film Festival, the FIPRESCI
Prize at the 52nd Melbourne International Film
Festival, and Second Prize from the Vietnam
Association of Cinematography. She has also
won prizes for her 25-episode television series
Hau Hoa (2007). The Real and the Ideal (2009)
received the Golden Kite Award from the
Vietnam Association of Filmmakers. For her
film Mother’s Soul (2011), 12-year-old lead
Phung Hoa Hoai Linh won the best actress
award at the Dubai International Film
Festival 2011.
Leaving their village to earn a living in the big
city, Tham and Quy’s relationship soon suffers
in the face of their impoverished conditions.
Depressed Tham falls for the charms of Thuat,
an urbane and sophisticated man. When Quy
discovers Thuat’s secret, he embarks on a
desperate search for his wife. An examination
about the choices and risks faced by women,
the film presents the urban environment as
a place where independence and agency
can be pursued, but in the face of constant
turbulence and temptations. Can there be joy
without material comfort? This film evokes
Doi Moi (renovation) cinema, where changing
contemporary sensibilities clash with restrictive
hierarchies in a bewildering way. Aimless
won the Silver Kite from the Vietnam Cinema
Association (2013) and the Silver Lotus from
the18th National Film Festival, Vietnam (2013).
Director’s
Statement
In modern society,
money prevails
in personal
relationships, and
people are lost in a
pragmatic way of life.
Only true love will
bring them back to
the right track.
Print source: Pham Nhue Giang
30
31
Sun 19 Apr / 5:30pm
Ida Anita del Mundo, 2014, Philippines, 85 min
T’boli with English subtitles, PG
Post-screening discussion with director Ida Anita del Mundo
The T’boli are one of the indigenous peoples
of Southern Mindanao. This film tells the story
of one of their legends, the princess K’na
who grows up amidst a century-old clan war
which has separated the T’boli people into
two villages on the North and South banks of
Lake Sebu. At a young age, K’na is trained in
the art of traditional weaving using designs
granted through dreams by the goddess of the
abaca plant. When she becomes the village’s
dreamweaver, her father arranges a marriage
between her and the heir to the throne of the
North so as to end the war. But K’na has fallen
in love with childhood friend Silaw. As the
wedding date draws near, a revolution brews
among those who do not believe in the joining
of the two royal clans.
Ida Anita del Mundo has an MFA in
Creative Writing from De La Salle University,
Manila. She writes for The Philippine Star’s
Starweek Magazine and has been a fellow
of the Silliman University National Writers
Workshop and the Iyas National Writers’
Workshop. Del Mundo has been playing the
violin since she was three years old, and is a
member of the Manila Symphony Orchestra.
Her debut feature K’na the Dreamweaver
premiered at the 10th Cinemalaya Film Festival
2014 where it received a Special Jury Prize
and the award for Best Production Design.
K’na the Dreamweaver intertwines the T’boli
tradition of t’nalak dreamweaving and the
narrative of young princess K’na’s coming of
age as she finds herself in the position to bring
peace to her village and to put an end to an
age-old clan war.
Though it may be interpreted as such, it is not
intended to be a historical film, nor a political
film, or even an advocacy film. It is a film made
with sensitivity and reverence for T’boli beliefs
and arts. At its core, K’na the Dreamweaver
is simply an honest, sincere love story that
becomes epic because of the vibrant T’boli
culture and the majestic Lake Sebu in South
Cotabato. With the seamless weaving of reality
and fiction, the film evokes a fantasy world and
aims to create a new Filipino legend.
Print source: Ida del Mundo
32
33
Fri 24 Apr / 7:30pm
Fundamentally Happy
World Premiere
Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin, 2015, Singapore, 60 min
English and some Malay with English subtitles, NC16 (Mature theme)
Post-screening discussion with directors Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin
Twenty years ago, Habiba and Eric were
neighbours. When Eric revisits her home to
find her still living there with her husband,
what seems like a friendly reunion turns into
the gradual revelation of a painful secret
from the past. Winner of Best Production
and Best Original Script at the 2007 Life!
Theatre Awards, this chamber drama gets a
film treatment by Singapore independents
Tan Bee Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin, with the
camera helmed by Christopher Doyle. With its
wrenching psychodrama and scalpel-edged
dialogue, the film’s moody cinematography
and varied close-ups bring viewers further into
the story’s heart of darkness, breaking down
the distance of the stage and cinema’s fourth
wall, and creating its own form of detachment.
An unflinching look at the consequences of
abuse, Fundamentally Happy explores without
judgment or condemnation critical issues such
as trust, memory, relationships and consent.
34
Tan Bee Thiam is producer, director and editor
with independent film collective 13 Little Pictures.
He has produced Red Dragonflies (2010);
Eclipses (2013) and SNAKESKIN (2014). He
directed Kopi Julia, one of 13 short films selected
by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for the Sharjah
Biennale 2013. Founder of the Asian Film Archive,
Tan edits the Cinemas of Asia journal and curates
films for the Singapore International Festival of
Arts. He has served as the jury at the Berlinale,
Locarno and Golden Horse film festivals and in
2009, was honoured as a National University of
Singapore Outstanding Young Alumni.
Lei Yuan Bin is a director and
cinematographer. His directorial debut White
Days (2009) has screened to international
audiences in Berlin, Rome, Buenos Aires, Hong
Kong and Bangkok. Lei’s sophomore feature,
documentary 03-FLATS (2014) has been
described as “an absorbing, almost hypnotically
arresting treatise”. As cinematographer, Lei has
worked on As You Were (Liao Jiekai) and Haze
(Anthony Chen). A founding member of 13
Little Pictures film collective, Lei was conferred
the Young Artist Award in 2012 by the National
Arts Council, Singapore’s highest award for
young arts practitioners.
This is a film adaptation of Fundamentally Happy,
a 2006 play by Haresh Sharma and Alvin Tan. We
are greatly inspired by their work and feel strongly
that the intersection of theatre and film can create
new ways of experiencing both mediums.
Just like Ingmar Bergman’s chamber films, we
find ourselves drawn to the use of theatricality
in film to allow the audience to vacillate between
immersing themselves in, yet resisting the screen
illusion. The audience is kept engaged, but at a
critical distance.
We are interested in how the film unravels in a
dissymmetry of the characters, Eric and Habiba’s
respective recollections and recounting of what has
taken place in the house. What is real and what is
remembered are often mirror images – seemingly
alike but also lateral opposites of each other.
In making this film, we hope to examine the
complex issue of sexuality with the grace of love.
Print source: 13 Little Pictures
35
Sat 25 Apr / 5:00pm
the perspective of those caught in that very
uncomfortable crack between two phenomena
that we celebrate so often: democratisation and
globalisation. My pengamen (street singers)
were feeling both these things very profoundly,
but benefiting from neither.
JALANAN
Daniel Ziv, 2013, Indonesia, 107 min
Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles,
NC16 (Some coarse language)
About 7,000 buskers roam the streets of Jakarta,
often jumping buses to perform for small
donations. This documentary tells the story of three
charismatic street musicians over a tumultuous
five-year period in their own lives that coincides
with political and social change in Indonesia.
Easy-going Boni lives in a sewage tunnel with his
wife, tapping on city power and water supplies.
Rare female busker Titi balances her religious
family’s demands with her job, and plans to return
to school. Dreadlocked Ho’s specialties are antiestablishment songs, but he is also looking for a
stable relationship. With their original compositions
as soundtracks, the film traces the three musicians’
elusive quests for identity, autonomy and love
in a turbulent city overrun by the effects of
globalisation and corruption.
36
Daniel Ziv was born and raised in Canada,
and has been living and working in Jakarta
since 1999, where he documents urban life
in Indonesia’s bustling capital city as a writer,
magazine editor and filmmaker. He is the founder
and editor of the monthly Djakarta! The City
Life Magazine, and the author of Jakarta Inside
Out and Bangkok Inside Out. He previously
worked in international humanitarian aid and
development agencies, including UNICEF, USAID
and UN-OCHA, and has a MA in Southeast Asian
Studies from the University of London. JALANAN
is his first feature-length film. The film won Best
Documentary at Busan International Film Festival
and Special Mention at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian
Film Festival, Indonesia (2013).
I was drawn to the story of JALANAN not
because of any ambition to become a filmmaker
or a pre-meditated quest to find a ‘good topic’
for a documentary, but because one day on
the streets of Jakarta, I stumbled across a gang
of unique individuals whose amazing life story
I could not ignore. It happened to contain
everything a documentary filmmaker could ask
for: contagious personalities; compelling social
justice issues; individual struggles that shed light
on universal issues; cheeky humour; a colourful
urban subculture, and – as an added bonus – a
built-in soundtrack of wonderful original music.
When I started out on this project, I thought
I was going to shoot a short film about the
busker community, their work, their world, and
their music. But over time it became clear to
me that by witnessing their lives so intimately,
I was also being exposed to a fascinating and
quite important story about Indonesia, a sort
of snapshot of the post-reformasi era from
Although the film contains moments of sadness,
struggle and injustice, these are far outweighed
by moments of engaging humour, catchy
music, beauty and hope. This isn’t the type of
documentary that feeds off tragedy. The stakes
are not as high as in some stories – this is not
about thousands of lives being threatened, nor
are people dying every day in this community.
And although living conditions for these buskers
are very basic, this isn’t even about the poorest
of the poor. Rather, JALANAN traces the lives
of a forgotten, marginalised community that
slips through society’s cracks. The dilemmas
and conflicts here represent a huge segment
of urban population in the developing world,
easily tens of millions in the case of Indonesia,
certainly hundreds of millions more across Asia.
This film is meant to give them a voice, to raise
awareness for their conditions and struggle.
JALANAN aims to bring the audience into this
colourful world as participants rather than
merely gazing down upon it. Their story is also
meant as a provocative mirror through which
we, in the more affluent part of the world, can
reflect on our own lives and values, learning
from the day-to-day perspectives and wisdom
of the characters in JALANAN. Ho’s favourite
mantra – as he bids farewell to bus passengers
after entertaining them (or outraging them)
with his songs, is that “Life must be fully lived!”
Print source: Monoduo Films (Juan Camilo Cruz)
37
Sat 25 Apr / 7:30pm
Jade Miners
Asian Premiere
Midi Z, 2015, Myanmar/Taiwan, 104 min
Myanma Bhasa with English subtitles, PG13 (Some coarse language)
Jade is a prized gem across Asia, and Kachin
state in Myanmar is a source of much of the
world’s jade. However, hostilities between the
Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar
army have led to the government-contracted
corporations ceasing their operations, as the jade
mines that spread over hundreds of kilometres
become a war zone. Despite the risk of arrest
or physical danger from the chaotic landscape,
workers from all over Myanmar still flock to
these deserted mines to dig illegally for jade,
desperately hoping to find a piece that will
transform their lives. Shot with the aid of locals,
Midi Z has complied a sober and intimate social
documentary that focuses on the daily lives of
these labourers.
38
Born in Myanmar, Midi Z trained as an artist in
Taiwan. His graduation film, Paloma Blanca, was
acclaimed worldwide. One of his first short films,
Hua-xin Incident (2008), was produced by Hou
Hsiao-Hsien and Ang Lee. Midi Z’s first feature
Return to Burma (2011) was in the Rotterdam
International Film Festival Tiger Competition
and the Busan New Currents Competition. His
latest feature, Ice Poison (2014), premiered at
the Berlinale, won Best Film at the Edinburgh
Film Festival and represented Taiwan in the Best
Foreign Film category at the Oscars. Jade Miners
is his first documentary.
As soon as you turn on the camera, reality
disappears. As for documentary, I do not believe
in reality; instead, I believe that reality can never
be easily conveyed via any media.
So in that case, why should I make a documentary?
Perhaps it is a personal statement; it expresses
what is hidden underneath these seemingly real
images and what I have witnessed, including the
never-changing nature of the game of survival
that human beings have played since the dawn
of time.
‘Civilisation’ for most people means nothing
more than ‘a better life’. The lives of these miners
around me are the epitome of a certain aspect
of human history. Stories like theirs have been
happening everywhere in the world, and the
truth lies behind them is universal.
Print source: Seashore Image Productions (Isabella Ho)
39
Sun 26 Apr / 3:00pm
Justice
Singapore Premiere
Joel Lamangan, 2014, Philippines, 120 min
Tagalog with English subtitles, R21 (Sexual scenes)
Erstwhile domestic worker Biring rises to
become the right-hand woman of Vivian, who
runs a human trafficking syndicate in Manila.
Her job entails bribing the authorities to turn
a blind eye to their illegal activities, which is
not difficult when the bureaucracy is already
corrupt. Even though her children refuse her
money because of how it was made, Biring
knows that in this line, it’s better to see no
evil, hear no evil and look after only oneself.
However, when she is framed for murder,
she starts on a spiral of ever-deepening
reprobation. When she has to make the stark
choice of whether to be a victim or a victimiser,
her transformation becomes complete. Filled
with the harsh realities of society, this film
features a bravura performance by superstar
Nora Aunor that is replete with moral and
psychological complexity.
40
Joel Lamangan is a multi-awarded Filipino
director who has trained and worked in the fields
of film and theater in the Philippines and abroad.
He acted and directed for stage and television
and also took screen roles, before opting for
film direction, making his debut in 1991 with
Darna. Among his notable films are The Flor
Contemplacion Story (1995) which won the
Golden Pyramid award at the Cairo International
Film Festival 1995 and Best Actress for Nora
Aunor, Pusong Mamon (1998), Deathrow
(2000), Hubog (2001), Huling Birhen sa Lupa
(2003), Blue Moon (2006) and Deadline (2011).
Justice is a story of how corruption has
penetrated every part of the Philippine society.
The film’s locale is Manila but it could very well
be the story of the entire country. Corruption in
the bureaucracy has penetrated from the highest
to the lowest level of governance. Justice is a
commentary on the social realities of the country
through the female lead character embodying
the different notorious personalities plaguing
Philippine society.
Nora Aunor, the legendary actress of Philippine
cinema gives life to the character of Biring – the
see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, talk-no-evil character,
exploited and victimised until she herself has
become the victimiser. It is a portrayal of a lonely
worker in the human trafficking industry seeking
to rise from the muck and vice of the criminal
world, but to what end, it is not clear.
Print source: Ignatius Films Canada (Ferdinand Lapuz)
41
Sun 26 Apr / 5:30pm
So Be It
Singapore Premiere
Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, 2014, Thailand, 85 min
Thai and Hmong with English subtitles, PG
Seven-year-old Thai-American student
William becomes an overnight celebrity when
he participates in a reality show that depicts
his experiences in a Buddhist summer ordination
programme. Meanwhile, 11-year old Bundit,
who is from an ethnic minority hilltribe, starts
on his own Buddhist journey as he is sent to a
temple along with more than 2,000 children,
where he chafes at the strict rules and being
separated from his family. Both William and
Bundit must learn in their own ways to pursue
freedom of mind and self-control of spirit. In an
age where organised religions are losing their
shine, why and how does a young child choose
of his own volition to become a monk? How do
children who live in temples survive and what do
they think of religious practice? The documentaryfiction hybrid film is a coming-of-age tale of
two boys from vastly different backgrounds,
who each have their own way of learning the
meaning of Buddhism in daily life.
42
Kongdej Jaturanrasmee is a veteran
filmmaker and scriptwriter, and the writer
and director of Sayew (2003), Midnight My
Love (2005), and Handle Me with Care (2008).
His film P-047 (2011) premiered at the Venice
Film Festival 2011 while Tang Wong (2013)
premiered at the Berlin International Film
Festival 2013. As a scriptwriter, he has won
awards and written the most successful Thai
films of recent years including Tom Yum Goong
(by Prachya Pinkaew), Queens of Pattani (by
Nonzee Nimibutr), and Me…Myself and Happy
Birthday (by Pongpat Wachirabanjong). He is
widely known for his two hits including The
Letter (2004), a remake of the 1997 Korean film
Pyeonji and the Tony Jaa action movie TomYum-Goong (2005). Jaturanrasmee is a film
professor at Assumption University in Thailand.
What do we still need religions for?
Thailand has always taken pride in being
a center of Buddhism. It is a country where
temples are established plentifully in every
province. But today, we are flooded with
shameful news regarding Buddhist monks
in our media, until we begin to lose our faith.
Furthermore, we live in an age where social
media obsesses us. Anyone could become
the prophet himself.
In the film, there are two ‘borderland’ boys
who spend their lives in temples. One is half
Thai and half-American. Another is a descendant
from a hill tribe family. The first one has many
opportunities in his life, but instead he chooses
to seek and understand Buddhism. But the
second one has no such choices and he must
stay in the temple in order to survive in his life.
Temple and Religion have become the tools for
seeking answers in the respective paths of life
for these two different boys.
Print source: Mosquito Films Distribution (Supatcha Thipsena)
43
Fri 1 May / 7:30pm
SNAKESKIN
Asian Premiere
Daniel Hui, 2014, Portugal/Singapore, 105 min
English, Rating to be advised
Post-screening discussion with director Daniel Hui
It is the year 2066, and the sole survivor of an
enigmatic cult recounts his country’s traumatic
history and the events that led to the rise and
collapse of this cult. As he reminiscences,
ghosts from 2014 and the years before appear
as witnesses. Part dream documentary, part city
symphony, this hybrid film traces the lineage
of oppression as inscribed both in Singapore’s
physical landscape, as well as its collective
unconscious. The personal recollections of
different characters are interspersed with scenes
of familiar settings and places. Loosely binding
this chorus together is a narrative voice-over
that reflects on the nature of history, showing
the richness of all that is forgotten, erased,
subjective and polymorphic. This unusual film
is a thoughtful look at the legacy and future
of this strange Southeast Asian island.
Daniel Hui is a filmmaker and writer.
A graduate of the film/video programme in
California Institute of the Arts, his films have
been screened at film festivals in Rotterdam,
Hawaii, Manila, Seoul, Bangkok, and
Vladivostok. Hui is also one of the founding
members of the independent 13 Little Pictures
film collective, whose works have garnered
international critical acclaim. His debut feature
film, Eclipses, won the Pixel Bunker Award
for International New Talent at the Doclisboa
International Film Festival 2013. His second
feature film, SNAKESKIN, won the Special Jury
Prize at the Torino Film Festival in 2014. He
is also a contributing editor to the Network
for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC)
online journal, Cinemas of Asia.
The 1950s is a fascinating era in Singapore’s
history. It was a time when Singapore had
the most vibrant film industry in the region.
It was also a time of great political upheaval.
Watching the cinema of this era, I have always
found many parallels between its ideals and the
ideals of activists and politicians at that time.
Both wanted a racially-integrated society that is
independent and egalitarian.
Unfortunately, a lot of this history has been
either forgotten, erased, or rewritten. This film
is dedicated to the people who have fallen
through the gaps of history. Their ghosts remain
with us, in our dreams, in our hallucinations,
in our unconscious. In the deep of the night,
when the ring of money has died down, we can
still hear their voices warning us of the future
to come.
Print source: 13 Little Pictures
44
45
Sat 2 May / 5:00pm
2030
Singapore Premiere
Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo, 2014, Vietnam, 98 min
Vietnamese with English subtitles, M18 (Sexual scene)
The horizon, where the land and sea meet,
is a curve that follows the surface of the earth.
However, at a relative small scale familiar to
humans, the horizon is also a straight line that
becomes a reference for stability, something that
we all cling to because we know how to keep
balance in that space. It gives us comfort because
it appears as the absolute truth in life. But the
absolute truth is not always available in life.
Water plays a strong visual role in this film.
The horizon, the intersecting line between water
and the atmosphere, appears as the perfect
horizontal line to the human eye. It appears
prominently in the beginning as a metaphor
for the absolute balance and truth in life.
Set in the vast and beautiful coastal regions
of southern Vietnam, this dystopic film envisions
a near future when water levels have risen to
swallow farmlands due to global climate change.
The Vietnamese people must now live in
houseboats and rely solely on rapidly-depleting
fishing grounds for food. As vegetables are now
highly priced commodities, huge multinational
conglomerates are competing to build floating
farms equipped with desalination and solar
power. Amidst all this is fisherwoman Sao,
who was briefly involved with visiting science
researcher Giang before her marriage. However,
when her husband Thi is murdered, Sao sets
out to discover the truth and is forced to make
a dramatic decision. This atmospheric maritime
mystery highlights the creative and destructive
force that is water.
46
Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo was born in
Vietnam, and frequented his small town’s only
movie theatre as a way to escape the atrocities
of the Indochina conflict. Emigrating to France
to study aeronautical engineering, he continued
to the US where he became a physicist. In 1998,
his passion for cinema led him to pursue a
programme in screenwriting and directing,
and his directorial debut, Buffalo Boy, was
Vietnam’s entry to the 2006 Academy Awards.
It won 15 awards around the world including
the New Directors’ Silver Hugo Award at the
Chicago International Film Festival, the FIPRESCI
Jury Award at the Palm Springs International
Film Festival, and the Youth Jury Award at the
Locarno International Film Festival. His latest
film 2030 opened the Panorama section of
the Berlin International Film Festival 2014.
The search for the absolute truth in global
climate change is still going on. What causes
the seawater level to rise? Many scientists have
argued that it is due to the greenhouse effect,
the consequence of the development of science
and technology since the industrial revolution.
Others disagree, arguing that the global climate
change is caused by either a natural fluctuation
in thermal balance or by the additional tilt of
the earth’s axis from its normal position that
has nothing to do with human activities. But
the dreadful effects of this global change have
been felt by many people with probably much
more destructive power to come in the near
future. Should we attempt to do something
immediately to deal with the effect of the rising
sea? Or should we do nothing while waiting for
the absolute truth?
If we decide to act, it seems to be natural that
science and technology play a role in offering
the solution. Besides curbing of the emission
of greenhouse gases that is a long-term solution,
something else has to be done right away about
the imminent shortage of food due to the loss
of agricultural land and fresh water sources.
Floating farms can resolve the shortage of
land, and techniques such as desalination or
evaporation can provide fresh water needed
for cultivation. However, a lower-cost solution
could be provided by manipulating the genes
in food plants, allowing them to grow with salt
water or even in salt water. Are these genetic
engineered plants safe for human consumption?
Throughout human history, we had developed
and consumed a great deal of genetically altered
foods. However, the change of food consumption
had happened over many thousands of years
where the body had enough time to adapt. The
present change to modern genetically engineered
foods is happening in a much shorter time and
will stretch the limit of human adaptability.
Using chaos theory, one has to accept the implicit
long-term unpredictability from the same initial
condition. It means pushing the human mind to
the limit of its intelligence. Ultimately, our ways
of coping could change us, and there’s no way
to know for sure. Yet we must forge ahead.
Print source: Premium Films (Kasia Karwan)
47
Sat 2 May / 7:30pm
Arnel Mardoquio, 2013, Philippines, 82 min
No Dialogue, R21 (Sexual scenes and violence)
Post-screening discussion with assistant director Yam Palma
One of the most experimental narratives
yet to speak of the conditions of exploitation
and poverty in southern Philippines, this film
is a visual tapestry of evocative symbols,
choreography and landscapes. Alfad’s dream
is to work abroad. Swallowed by the sea, his
soul returns to the island of his birth where he
finds his memories on its shore. Aliya is a young
girl who represents the spirit of the new day
and the uncertainty of the future. When they
return to their homeland, they find it destroyed
and the people searching for a divine presence
to save them, which emerges in the form of old
Wahab, ruler of a strange cult. However, female
shaman Mariposa and rebel woman farmer
Mayka join forces to confront him. A poetic
exploration of the labyrinth of tragedies and
anatomy of violence in Mindanao, this film won
Best Director, Best Cinematography and Grand
Jury Prize at the Cinema One Originals Film
Festival (2013).
Arnel Mardoquio was born and works
in Davao City, Mindanao, in the Philippines.
He has won the grand prize at the literary Palanca
Awards, and was also awarded Best Director
and garnered a nomination for Best Screenplay
at the Gawad Urian for his films Earth’s Whisper
(2008) and Hospital Boat (2009). His film Sheika
(2010) won Best Screenplay, Best Actress and
Best Editing at the 34th Gawad Urian Awards
and received NETPAC awards at the Cinemalaya
Independent Film Festival 2010. The Journey
of the Stars into the Dark Night (2012) won Best
Film at the Gawad Urian Awards 2013, Best
Screenplay at the Young Critics Circle 2013 and
the Grand Jury Prize at both the Cinema One
Originals Film Festival 2012 and at Cinemanila
IFF 2012. Riddles of My Homecoming (2013)
won the Grand Jury Prize, Best Director, Best
Cinematography at the Cinema One Originals Film
Festival 2013. Alienasyon (2014), his latest feature,
won the Jury Prize and Best Cinematography at
the Gawad Tanglaw Awards 2014.
I make films for my country, and when I say
‘country’, I am referring to Mindanao. This
standpoint plays a very important element in
my craft as a storyteller. In my earnest desire to
contribute something worthwhile to our historical
development, my films promote the identities of
the Mindanaoans. The Poor-Deprived-Oppressed
Mindanaoans play heroes and heroines in my
stories. While my films promote the richness and
diversity of our people and culture, it does not
promote tourism and it does not talk about the
beauty and the goodness of our region – my film
speaks about the truth in Mindanao.
Riddles of My Homecoming is very rich in
images. The narrative of the film is enveloped
with many signs and symbols. The theme
revolves around the belief of Lumad (natives)
about one soul that returned to his birthplace
to serve as the place-keeper, a guardian to the
land, mountains and waters. The film’s setting
and time is not fixed, yet the characters meet
at different times and realities in their lives. The
dramatic timeline of this film is so complex that
it is so immersed into the fantastic world of the
Lumad, yet the film also tries to pull us into a
homogenous time.
In making this film, every time I peep in the
camera, I don’t look for the ‘beautiful shot.’
I confirm the correctness of visual interpretation,
or the manner by which one temporal reality
is captured, according to the dramatic timeline
that I have to fulfill.
Print source: Creative Programs Inc (Ronald Arguelles)
48
49
Sun 3 May / 3:00pm
Wukan: The Flame of Democracy
Lynn Lee and James Leong, 2013, Singapore, 90 min
Mandarin with English subtitles, NC16 (Mature content)
Wukan, a village in southern China,
captured international attention in 2011
when demonstrators took to the streets to
rebel against decades of corrupt rule. In the face
of insurmountable odds, the village committee
fell and democratic elections were announced.
Wukan’s residents then found themselves
grappling with the challenges of a new political
system: former rebel leaders now had to run the
village, respond to the demands of the electorate,
and deal with provincial and county authorities.
This intimate documentary portrait of a rural
Chinese community mirrors the complex mix
of challenges, euphoria, hopes and hard realities
facing fledgling democracies across the world.
The film was given Special Mention at the 2013
Dubai Film Festival and won first prize at the
2014 Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong.
Lynn Lee and James Leong are
filmmakers who have spent the last decade
making documentaries across Asia. Their first
feature documentary Passabe (2005) was a
grant recipient from the Sundance Institute
Documentary Fund and was acquired by ARTE.
Their second film, Aki Ra’s Boys (2006), won
two international awards, while their third,
Homeless FC (2007), received the Grand Prize
at the Chinese Documentary Festival. Their
documentary The Great North Korean Picture
Show (2012) has screened at film festivals
across the world. Lee and Leong have also
made numerous television documentaries,
including Nowhere to Go, an investigative piece
for Al Jazeera English, which won the First Prize
at the 2013 Human Rights Press Awards.
We rooted for Wukan when we first learnt
about its struggle: a fishing village in Southern
China, rising up against decades of corrupt rule
and illegal land grabs by its local leaders. Thanks
to social media, breathtaking images of the
revolt were widely circulated online – thousands
of angry villagers waving placards and banners,
chanting slogans, standing their ground even
as authorities threatened a crackdown. News
that they had ousted their Village Committee
and won government approval to hold
unprecedented democratic elections made
headlines all over the world. It was arguably,
one of the biggest stories to emerge from China
in 2011, a story celebrating a people’s tenacity
in the face of overwhelming odds.
But what happens after an uprising? In early
2011, as Wukan prepared to hold landmark
elections, we ventured into the village to find out.
What followed was a truly unforgettable year.
For the former activists elected to the Village
Committee, it was also a difficult one – fraught
with risk, frustration and heartache. Democracy,
we’ve all learnt, is a complicated thing.
We are grateful to Wukan’s villagers and their
Village Committee for letting us witness their
remarkable journey, for opening their homes and
hearts to us. The story, we know, is still unfolding,
and we plan to keep following it. Despite all the
disappointment and disillusionment, we know that
the struggle for a better Wukan continues.
Print source: Lianain Films (Lynn Lee)
50
51
Sun 3 May / 5:30pm
NOVA
Singapore Premiere
Nik Amir Mustapha, 2014, Malaysia, 106 min
Bahasa Malaysia and some English with English subtitles,
NC16 (Some drug use)
Filmmaker Berg, obsessed with an unidentified
blob he saw in the sky when he was a student,
reunites his old friends on a whim, calling
them to go on a road trip for old times’ sake,
while capturing this alien spacecraft on film.
Despite their doubts about this shaky premise,
and Berg’s filmmaking abilities and drug habit,
they all agree to go on this expedition, as each
of them have their personal reasons for doing
so. As they reminisce about their old school
days, tension arises as they start to disagree on
what happened back then. This chase for this
elusive UFO becomes more than what it seems.
A quirky genre mash-up of comedy, sci-fi,
road-trip and buddy movie, this engaging film
contains several homages to Malaysian cinema.
52
Nik Amir Mustapha was trained in
engineering but became a filmmaker after
pursuing training in the medium. His first
feature film, Kil (2013) won Best Film, Best
Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress
in the Malaysian Screen Awards 2013.
The film also won Best Film, Best Director,
Best Screenplay and Best New Actress at the
Malaysian Film Festival 2014. NOVA (Terbaik
Dari Langit) is his second feature.
After my first feature, I found myself wanting
to make a film that focuses on matters close to
my heart. I wanted to reflect my Malaysian roots
in the film. Having spent my youth in a boarding
school, I recalled the camaraderie that was
formed and the way that friendships evolved.
I was also at a point where I had my principles
tested where I had to face the pressure to
conform to society. At the time, I felt a need
to have a voice in the local Malaysian filmmaking
scene. With all these ideas in mind, I developed a
strong will to explore these topics and that was
how NOVA came into existence.
Personally I feel that having all these different
genres in the movie inspired a lot of people
working on the project. It sparked something
in our film-making minds. The takeaway for
filmmakers who watch it is that you can use
anything and create anything as long as you
make sure you do it with heart.
Print source: Astro Shaw Sdn Bhd (Alea Rahim)
53
About
the
Curators
Philip Cheah is a film curator and film
critic. He is Vice-President of Network for the
Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and serves
as Consultant for the AsiaPacificFilms.com,
the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, Cinema
Digital Seoul Film Festival and the Dubai
International Film Festival. He is co-editor of
the books Garin Nugroho – And the Moon
Dances, Noel Vera’s Critic After Dark and Ngo
Phuong Lan’s Modernity and Natioanlity in
Vietnamese Cinema. He is also the editor of
BigO, Singapore’ only independent pop culture
publication. As a founding member of the
Singapore International Film Festival, he was
the Programmer and Director from 1987 to
2010. He was awarded the Asian Cinema Prize
in 2006 at 8th Cinemanila International Film
Festival for his contribution to Asian film.
Teo Swee Leng is a veteran arts
administrator and consultant and has worked
in the local arts and film community for
the past 28 years. She was festival director
of the Singapore International Film Festival
54
from 1991 to 2007 and the administrator for
TheatreWorks from 1985 to 1989. She was the
executive producer of ISEA2008, and works as
consultant on projects including Conference for
Network For The Promotion of Asian Cinema,
AsiaPacificFilms.com, Singapore Biennale 2013,
Lien Fung’s Colloquium, National Museum of
Singapore Cinematheque, THIS Buddhist Film
Festival, and Alexander Street Press.
Sam I-shan is a curator at Singapore Art
Museum focusing on new media, photography
and film. Her exhibitions include part of
Still Moving: A Triple Bill on the Image and the
Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature
Art Prize 2014. She was also curator for Artist
Films (2011 – 2012) and co-curator for the
Southeast Asian Film Festival (2011 – 2015). She
was co-curator for the AiRX Artist-in-Residence
Programme 2012/13, which was supported by
the Singapore International Foundation and the
British Council, and an award recipient of the
JENESYS Programme for Creators Residency
2012 in Japan.
About
Singapore
Art Museum
The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) focuses
on contemporary art practice in Singapore,
Southeast Asia and Asia within the global
context. It advocates and makes accessible
interdisciplinary contemporary art through
research-led and evolving curatorial practice.
Opened in January 1996, SAM has built up
one of the most important collections of
contemporary art from the region. It seeks
to seed and nourish a stimulating and creative
space in Singapore through exhibitions and
public programmes. These encompass
cross-disciplinary residencies and exchanges,
research and publications, as well as outreach
and education. SAM was the organiser of the
Singapore Biennale in 2011 and 2013.
SAM was incorporated as a Company Limited
by Guarantee on 13 November 2013 and has
moved from the National Heritage Board to
the Visual Arts Cluster (VAC) under the Ministry
of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY).
The other institutions under the VAC are the
National Gallery, Singapore and STPI.
55
General Information
SAM is located at 71 Bras Basah Road, Singapore 189555.
SAM’s annexe, SAM at 8Q, is located at 8 Queen Street, Singapore 188535.
Cover Image:
Film still of The Look of Silence
Photo by Lars Skree @ Final Cut for Real
Writeups by Sam I-shan and Philip Cheah
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