Wee Li Lin / Singapore / 2007 / 100 minutes / Mandarin, English, Tamil
Wee Li Lin’s satirical modern day fairytale takes place over the course of three days, during which three characters’ stories intersect in a Singapore mall, providing a wry, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant commentary on the modern world’s favorite sport: shopping.
Sponsored by the Embassy of Singapore.
Preceded by
The Anniversaries
Ariani Darmawan / Indonesia / 2006 / 12 minutes / Indonesian
From its shocking opening scene of a police raid on a squatters’ community to its irony-drenched climax at a political rally, Brillante Mendoza’s aptlytitled film is an adrenalin-fueled sprint through Manila’s underworld and an inventive piece of digital filmmaking. Intended for mature audiences.
Awards:
2007 Marakech International Film Festival (Jury Prize)
2008 Singapore International Film Festival (Best Director, NETPAC Award, Best Asian Film)
2008 Berlinale (Caligari Film Prize)
Sponsored by the Embassy of the Philippines.
Sunday, September 14, 4 PM
Invisible City
Tan Pin Pin / Singapore / 2007 / 60 minutes / Mandarin, Japanese, English
Documentary filmmaker Tan Pin Pin looks beneath Singapore’s image as a shining, modern metropolis in this engaging exploration of the city’s (sometimes literally) buried history.
In Aditya Assarat’s haunting film, a Bangkok architect, sent to a town devastated by the 2004 tsunami to supervise construction of a new beach resort, falls in love with the young woman who manages the hotel in which he is the sole guest.
Intended for mature audiences.
A selection of short films by the Thai director of such acclaimed features as Syndromes and a Century, Tropical Malady, and Blissfully Yours, who Dennis Lim of the Village Voice hails as “world cinema’s premier maker of mysterious objects.”
Sponsored by the Royal Thai Embassy.
Film descriptions by Jed Rapfogel of Anthology Film Archives, New York
Program One (96 min. total) The Anthem
One of the rituals ingrained into Thai society is the blessing automatically given before certain ceremonies and events, such as the playing of the Royal Anthem in movie theaters before feature presentations. This short film presents a "Cinema Anthem" that comically praises and blesses the feature to come.
Thailand / 2006 / 5 min. / Thai with English subtitles
Windows
"Windows is an improvisation using a little physical movement to capture natural phenomena through the camera eye's mechanism." —A.W.
Thailand / 1999 / 17 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Malee and the Boy
For this collaborative project, the director followed the route of a ten-year-old boy who roamed Bangkok on the assignment of gathering sounds for the film—then the filmmaker followed the boy's route with a camera. The narrative of the film, presented in texts, was taken from a Thai comic book that was available around the location in which filming took place.
Thailand / 1999 / 27 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves
This documentary leisurely examines the shifting focus of image and sound. On a hot day in a small town, sounds from a mystical radio fill the air. Lives are trapped in the time of the radio play, of the photograph, and of the film
Thailand / 1995 / 30 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Thirdworld
Thirdworld depicts the landscapes, metaphorical and actual, of the southern island called Panyi. Since the sounds, taken from different sources, were recorded without the subjects' awareness, this piece may be called a reconstructed documentary.
Thailand / 1997 / 17 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Intermission
Program Two (78 min. total) The Anthem
One of the rituals ingrained into Thai society is the blessing automatically given before certain ceremonies and events, such as the playing of the Royal Anthem in movie theaters before feature presentations. This short film presents a "Cinema Anthem" that comically praises and blesses the feature to come.
Thailand / 2006 / 5 min. / Thai with English subtitles
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As images of a photograph and an apartment interior alternate, a telephone conversation links the two spaces.
Thailand / 1994 / 5 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Ghost of Asia
In Ghost of Asia, which Weerasethakul co-directed with Christelle L'Heureux, the filmmakers imagine a ghost who wanders along the seashore. On a Thai island, two boys and a girl are invited to make a movie. The kids are provided with an actor whose function is to be a puppet, to perform the tasks dictated by them. On a Thai island, two boys and a girl are invited to make a movie, and the young filmmakers imagine/choose to depict a ghost who wanders along the seashore. They are assigned an actor whose main purpose is to serve as a puppet and perform the tasks they dictate.
Thailand / 2005 / 8.5 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
My Mother's Garden
Jewelry designer Victoire de Castellane creates pieces that are inspired by various types of dangerous flowers and carnivorous plants, with each piece having a hidden mechanical movement. Weerasethakul directed this film as a tribute to his mother's garden and its wild orchid roots, bugs, and organisms.
2007 / 7 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Worldly Desires
"Worldly Desires is an experimental project wherein I invited a filmmaker friend, Pimpaka Towira, to shoot the love story by day and the song by night....The video is a little simulation of manners, dedicated to the memories of filmmaking in the jungle during the years 2001 to 2005." —A.W.
Thailand / 2005 / 40 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Emerald
In 1906 the Danish author Karl Gjellerup wrote the Buddhist novel The Pilgrim Kamanita, in which the protagonists are reborn as two stars that take centuries to recite their stories to each other—until they no longer exist. In Emerald, Morakot is a now-defunct hotel in the heart of Bangkok. It opened its doors in the 1980s, at a time when Thailand entered into accelerated economic industrialization and Cambodians poured into Thai refugee camps after Vietnamese forces invaded their country. When the East Asian financial crisis struck in 1997, these reveries collapsed.
Like the pilgrim Kamanita, the unchanged Morakot hotel is a star burdened with (or fueled by) memories. Apichatpong collaborated with his three regular actors, who recounted their dreams, hometown life, bad moments, and love poems, to resupply the hotel with new memories.
Thailand / 2007 / 12 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles
Friday, September 26, 7 PM
Good Morning, Luang Prabang (Sabaidee Luang Prabang)
Co-directed by Anousone Sirisakda and Sakchai Deenan, this film – the first feature made in Laos in over three decades – tells the story of a Laotian-Australian photographer who, on assignment in Laos, connects with his cultural roots while falling in love with the beautiful tour guide who shows him around.
Fatimah Rony, Upi Avianto, Nia DiNata, Lasja F. Susatyo / Indonesia / 2007 / 102 minutes / Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese
In Person: Fatimah Rony, director of 'Chant from an Island' segment
This four-part omnibus film brings into sharp relief the social situations of contemporary women living in modern-day Indonesia. Directors: Nia Dinata, Upi Avianto, Fatima Rony, Lasja F. Susatyo.
Sponsored by Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia.
Co-presented by the United States - Indonesia Society (USINDO).
Friday, October 3, 7 PM
Flower in the Pocket
Liew Seng Tat / Malaysia / 2007 / 97 minutes / Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, English
Winner of awards at the Pusan and Rotterdam film festivals, Liew Seng Tat’s debut feature is the story of two endearing but troublesome young boys and their workaholic single dad.
Li Ahh and Li Ohm grow up motherless. They are neglected by their father Sui, a workaholic who spends the bulk of his time mending broken mannequins in his workshop. While he shuts himself out from the world, the two brothers roam the streets, get into fights and other troubles in school but for all they want is just love and to be loved.
In Lưu Huỳnh’s film, a peasant woman tries to keep her family together through a dozen years of war and oppression during the waning years of the French occupation of Vietnam.
Awards:
2007 Golden Rooster & Hundred Flowers Film Festival (Best Foreign Film)
2007 Fukuoka Asian Film Festival (Kodak Vision Award)
2006 Pusan International Film Festival (Audience Award)
A selection of short films by the Thai director of such acclaimed features as Syndromes and a Century, Tropical Malady, and Blissfully Yours, who Dennis Lim of the Village Voice hails as “world cinema’s premier maker of mysterious objects.”
