by John Gianvito

Many years ago I remember seeing a documentary on Ingmar Bergman where he was asked to give his definition of a film director. He replied that the best definition he had ever heard had come from an “anonymous” filmmaker who stated, “A film director is someone who can not think because of all his problems.”

Likely the words were Bergman’s own, and certainly these days my feelings couldn’t be more in consort. While, as a full-time teacher, I am exceedingly appreciative of the fact that I receive summers ‘off’, this ‘off’ means that due to the exigencies of administrative evaluation I work even more tirelessly during these months than while teaching.  Quite apart from the steady pulls of my own work ethic loom the ever present pushes of the capitalist dictate that people must rent themselves in order to survive (a faint, pleasant memory of the film “Alexandre le bienheureux” drifts by). I write from the chaos of my apartment in a suburb of Boston, it is a rare day not in the editing room where, since late June, I have been mostly working on a feature documentary I began shooting 3 years ago in the Philippines (which now looks to be a two-part film, each feature length). I was thinking to recount some of the numerous tasks on my “things to do” list but one of today’s headaches is that I now seem to have misplaced my list. Summer pulses outside my window. So does the spot where my tooth was extracted the other day. Cinema – of others – feels far away.  A growing stack of dvds sits forlornly on the floor, on my desk, on the couch, presents for a rainy day -  Lino Brocka’s “Tinimbang Ka ngunit Kulang”, Katsu Kanai’s “Good-Bye”, Ruy Guerra’s “O veneno da madrugada”, Raymundo Gleyzer’s “The Traitors”, Rob Nilsson’s “Samt”, Yoshida’s “Eros + Massacre”… Somebody keeps phoning but without the courage to leave a message. Probably a solicitor. A friend arrives in two days from London, better do some laundry. Through the radio, news breaks of the passing of poet Mahmoud Darwish, who once wrote, “It is time for me to exchange the word for the deed/Time to prove my love for the land and for the nightingale:/For in this age the weapon devours the guitar/And in the mirror I have been fading more and more/Since at my back a tree began to grow.” Tomorrow I will go back to the editing room and, as if I needed a reminder, I will gaze upon a world infinitely more perilous than my own and all those many, many eyes, now turned into pixels, looking back at me, hoping, somehow, that the modest presence of my camera will make a difference.

August 10, 2008, Arlington, Massachusetts

It was late spring and just starting to get really hot in the Dirty American South. I was 2-weeks out on a 2-month screening tour with my hobo graffiti documentary Who is Bozo Texino?, driving a big counter-clockwise circle around north America. I’m driving my good old 1965 Chevy van, very primitive but very reliable. Out of the 45 shows I had planned, the show in Pensacola, Florida sounded like it would be a blast. My buddy Mike Brodie was planning a big event with a photo exhibition of his freight-riding photography to go with my film screening. The show was indeed wild. It was packed with punks and tramps and circus freaks and sex workers. Many had driven in from New Orleans, and they were a beautiful and colorful bunch of flowers. After the show we all went to the beach for a wild party. People were playing music, dancing naked around the fire, swimming— it was a magic sight beneath the moon. A freight train parked right next to us and everyone ran and drew on the side of the train. The party lasted until noon. I was still wasted, blissed-out, and now sunburned when I asked my local friends about the drive to Tallahassee, the town of my screening that night. “Oh, about 5 hours” they say, “And don’t forget about the time zone difference, it’s really 6 hours.” Oh No! Time zone difference?!?! I realize there is no way I will make it. But, I might make it to the end of the show for the Q&A. I jump in the van and push the pedal to the floor. The Chevy has not had a working speedometer for many years, so I am driving according to the temperature gauge, going as fast as I can with out blowing the motor. It’s already hot in Florida, and I’ve got the van’s heater on the help cool the engine. We call this a “Hell Ride.” I call the venue on the cell phone, “I’m going to be a little bit late…. Can you stall the show a bit…?” They have some cartoons they can show first. Great. The van and I are sweating and maxed out. I make it to the theater and running up I can hear the music from the credit roll just finishing. Say what you will about Florida, but it has two time zones.

Published in Ekran, 2008 (April/May)

As I am about to write this postcard from Kosovo I can not help but mention cinemas in Prizren, the second largest city in Kosovo. The long gone cinema Radnik, or the beautiful open air cinema Lumbardhi, whose future doesn’t look very bright either. Those were places I spent countless hours in, places I never ceased loving and ultimately places that inspired me to do something about my own city. But I am not going to lament over their fate because otherwise this would be another story about the dying of cinemas. Instead I’ll try to tell you the story of a city in Kosovo where lack of cinema paradoxically paved way to the birth of film festival.

Back in 2002 only few of us believed in idea of organizing film festival. In a country trying to recover from recent war and in the city where few remembered the day they last walked out of cinema, it never seemed an easy task. Not to mention the fact that there had never been a film festival in Kosovo before and that we had no idea how to do it. But we had an urge, something my friend Aliriza and a co-founder of the festival formulated as our mission: “To bring back the cinema, especially to those who never experienced it”. And indeed, back in 2002 there were generations that never saw a film on big screen.

We called the festival DokuFest, partly because our intention was to screen documentaries but also because it sounded so nice.

Seeing 500 people at the opening ceremony was like dream come true to all of us that initial year.

Fast forward to present day and you’ll find city of Prizren in August packed with film makers, producers, festival directors, visitors and hundreds of volunteers with DokuFest t-shirts running from one cinema to another. You’ll find open air cinema Lumbardhi packed each night but you’ll also find temporary reincarnation of Radnik cinema at its original place, just behind the magnificent Sinan Pasha’s Mosque with hundreds of cinema lovers there, too. Or hundred of kids hand in hand with their parents, waiting patiently to enter one of the DokuKids screenings. You can walk narrow streets of the old town, enjoy delicious local food but inevitably you’ll find yourself in front of the cinemas. All this creates that magical atmosphere during the second week of August, known in Kosovo as a week of DokuFest in DokuCity.

Last week I returned from Zagreb where I attended ZagrebDox festival. But unlike returning from other festivals this time it was different. A documentary from Kosovo Weddings and Diapers, which had its world premiere in DokuFest, walked away with main award in regional competition at ZagrebDox. It never happened before and I think I was as happy as the film makers itself.

I promised my postman a t-shirt. And a festival badge for his son. He says his son loves watching movies and that he has seen his first film on big screen at Dokufest.

So when I see my postman these days I feel very happy. Happy because every time I see him I know he has more films for us. There were 36 films in 2002. Last year he brought nearly 800. Among them films like Taxi to the Dark Side that went to pick up Oscar later on or one of my personal favorites Ghosts of Cite Soleil about the struggle of two brothers and gang leaders in the slums of Port-Au-Prince in Haiti who is running for newly established Cinema Eye award.. Or many others!

Sure there will be many good films this year, too.

Greetings from Kosovo,

Veton Nurkollari

Published in Ekran, 2008 (April/May)

A daydreaming cinephile or film student will often develop a certain kind of obsession over a film. This is where you wish it were your film, your filament that gave light to the idea in the beginning and your voice that called the wrap. It is certainly not an uncommon preoccupation, but an altering one for most. That is to say the films often change, the obsession remains the same. For me, however, the object of this sort of fantasy has for long been constant. I first saw Woody Allen’s Manhattan as a student, alone in a dark screening room, with the New York skyline spread across the wall and Gershwin blowing out of the speakers. When I returned to my room I picked up a dictaphone and recorded – as does the character of Isaac (Allen himself) – my list of the things that make life worthwhile. Right at the top, alongside Lolita and Casa Piccola’s profiteroles, was the film itself.

In my efforts to write a film scenario over the last few years, I have often returned to Manhattan. At first I coveted the obvious – the wit (always the wit), the intentionally pretentious banter, the black and white in Cinemascope, and the silhouette love scene. I soon decided that these were mostly the make-up, and the heart of it was really the internal monologue of a writer at odds with himself. ‘Self-reflexive’ was a word being used a lot in class. And so I indulged in a little bit of solipsism. My protagonist became a screenwriter struggling for a story, driven to opening his dictionary to random pages where he’d pick three successive words (like tongue, tonic, tonight) and then fashion a story out of them. I had reached that point myself and settled on film, filter, filth. It was a crummy plot – the writer needed to filter through all the filth clogging his mind to find one valuable story for a film. But it was working. I made it to page 30, where he met a girl and had a conversation about how handy alliterations can be. That evening I visited the cinema to see the Spike Jonze film, Adaptation which turned out, of course, to be about Charlie Kaufmann writing himself into his own screenplay. Swine!

Later, another scion in my lineage of Manhattan ideas emerged as a short script for a photoroman entitled The Pedestrian. In writing it, I finally found myself upon the actual point. The city’s the thing. Write about yourself in the city. But how on earth was I to find Manhattan in Delhi, a city without sidewalks or a skyline? Delhi’s horns are in the cacophony of traffic and not in the rhapsody of a jazz orchestra. My ambitions were all out of proportion. The full evidence of this is in the first film I have managed to complete – a one-minute video that isn’t monochrome but coloured by Delhi’s smog orange night-light; featuring strangers at roundabouts instead of lovers on park benches. We shot one high-rise that didn’t make the cut.

But the daydream endures … It’s the end of the film. I stand in place of Isaac, opposite the girl, whose face is different every time (though some have repeated themselves). Here is what follows usually:

NEEL: Stay. I think you should stay.

GIRL: Why? That’s not what you said a week ago.

NEEL: I know … but I changed my mind. I love you. And so I would prefer it if you didn’t go.

GIRL: Oh God, Neel …

NEEL: Just stay for a moment.

GIRL: For what?!

NEEL: You’ll see … there’ll be great big buildings and jazz in a second.

GIRL: Jazz! What for?

NEEL: Just … well, because that’s how it should be.

I smile at her.

There is a long silence as no rhapsody follows.

Published in Ekran, 2008 (February/March)

Volvia de caminar durante dos o tres horas por unas calles deshabitadas de las afueras, La verdad no se bien que buscaba, estaba pensando en lugares y tratando de encontrar algunos rasgos communes y actitudes de la gente que vivia por alla, Yo habia llegado como diez o quince dias atras y las calles del centro las conocia como si ahi me hubiera criado de chico. En realidad estaba cansado de buscar sin saber adonde me llevaba la busqueda, estaba imposibilitado de decicir y conversar con las personas, entonces planificaba donde iba a comer pero sobre todo que iba a tomar, si empezar con vino, cerveza, whisky, todo dependia de la hora del dia y de como queria llegar al final de la noche que en realidad era corta porque en esa epoca anochecia muy tarde y aclaraba bien temprano, pero lo que me importaba eran esas horas de noche y quien caminaba por las calles porque estaba buscando un hombre de bar, un bebedor que me de cierta informacion sobre los que beben sin importar la hora. Ahora estaba en la cama de una pension familiar mirando el techo casi por empezar a dormir una siesta, ya habia hecho algunas llamadas a Buenos Aires y las cosas seguian normal, los imprevistos vendrian mas adelante. Recuerdo las voces de la casa , sobre todo las de los hijos corriendo por la cocina y peleando con el televisor, las paredes eran muy finas y se escuchaba todo con claridad, tambien estaba el abuelo de los chicos siempre contando estupideces. Ellos tambien me escuchaban llegar a cualquier hora pero como viajaba solo no les ocasionaba mayores problemas. Habia decidido filmar una pelicula en el sur de Argentina, algunos le dicen el fin del mundo pero en realidad no es para tanto aunque uno se siente bastante alejado, perdido… decia que queria filmar algo que tenga que ver con el mar, con estar lejos de todo, alguien que regresaba sin saber porque, talvez para ver si su madre todavia vivia en el mismo lugar donde el habia nacido, talvez para saber si todavia su madre estaba viva, pero a lo mejor eso solo era una excusa para bajar del barco y dedicarse a vaciar vasos, volverlos a llenar y vaciarlos de nuevo. Yo no sabia bien que buscaba y entonces era dificil encontrar algo, claro que hay veces que uno a primera vista percibe algo extraño, gente que parece estar fuera de lugar, y para encontarlos solo hay que estar ahi y esperar que aparezcan. Dias atras habia pasado unas horas en una escuela de discapacitados, pasando el rato con ellos y hablando con los profesores que ponian musica para hacerlos salir de su propio mundo o compartirlo un rato, un mundo que siempre me dio mucha curiosidad de conocer, entrar en ese misterio pero no para quedarme solo para ver que se siente, habia de todo pero en general eran cariñosos, saque algunas fotos a las chicas con menor grado de discapacidad porque tambien buscaba una chica discasitada para la pelicula, aquellas que podian ir al baño solas y caminar sin problemas, Estar en la escuela era un respiro porque no sentia la presion de caminar por las calles buscando algo, estar entre los chicos y llevarlos en sillas de ruedas de un lado para el otro me hacia sentir util y ademas me hacian reir bastante, tambien podia decir cualquier cosa que se me ocurriera sin tener que dialogar o esperar una respuesta que tenga sentido, Como te llamas? le dije a una, me dijo Montaña. Despues de esas cuatro o cinco horas que pasaba en la escuela no hablaba mucho, solo para pedir comida y algunas cervezas, despues volvia a la casa a leer un rato y mirar el techo. La pelicula se va a llamar Liverpool y espero que les guste.

Published in Ekran, 2007 (November/December)

What do you usually write on postcards from far-away places? Something about the weather perhaps. Well, it’s been raining hard these past few weeks in Singapore. Rarely a day goes by when the light doesn’t fade from the sky, still air roughly shaken by wind, and then a downpour begins. Except it didn’t rain on National Day (August 9). By some well-organised miracle, the country was spared the sight of this annual mega-million dollar spectacular (live and televised) parade being drenched in warm water. This is the day that Singapore celebrates its independence (since 1965), a combination of excessive Vegas showbiz with North Korean-style displays of military might. Singapore on ice – with weapons. A demonstration of stealth attacks segueways into a Finding Nemo rip-off, 500 schoolkids dressed as colourful sea creatures. Thousands more extras are martialed onto the stage, singing, dancing, waving glow-sticks, lights and kites, as an ersatz narrative of the country’s ‘emergence’ is represented by an in-line skating lion-fish-man. The audience, waiting for the fireworks, look awed and bored in equal measure. But National Day is actually rain-proof. Not to say that the state can control metereological conditions – but rather if the clouds do disgorge, the show will just go on, and the national myth – endurance against the odds – is only affirmed.

To escape the rain (or the parade) you go to the cinema. A feature film lasts long enough for the storm to pass and even for the streets to be bone-dry when you leave. Locally-made features tend to get a bad rap – they struggle to find stories that can compete against the official version of ‘being Singaporean’. Unhappiness becomes a trope, worn out by over-use. A parade’s worth of miserable, alienated Singaporeans trapped on the screen. Yet this year has brought some alternatives to the alternatives, and it might quietly be marked up as a watershed for Singaporean film. Tan Pin Pin’s Invisible City, released a few weeks before National Day, explicitly addresses the problem of history in this country, a malaise that the parade, utterly and joyfully anti-historical, epitomised.

Tan Pin Pin makes essayistic documentaries, but eschews voice-over or on-screen text, keeping editorial intervention way in the background; rather she carefully arranges the subjects and strands (characters and stories), teasing out humorous and meaningful connections, leaving others open, forcing the viewer to do the math (or history). City is most powerfully about old people and their souvenirs. A former student radical clutches his set of black and white photographs of left-wing protests from the late ‘50s; events that have been censored, footnoted, then ignored. An ageing brain-impaired professor, lensman of dozens of reels of colour film footage of the region in the ‘60s, reveals that most of it is unlogged and mysterious, much like his fragmented memories. A dying English woman alone on a bed – she once photographed buildings in Singapore for a book. All of the places she saw are demolished, and it’s now a volume of empty spaces – ghosts.

Speaking of which, Seventh Month began a week after the parade. It’s the time of year when Taoists believe the spirits of their ancestors temporarily return. Celebrated by Chinese the world over by the burning of incense and ‘hell’ money, in Singapore (and Malaysia) there’s a tradition of entertaining the dead (and the living) with getai (song stage) – makeshift live variety shows that spring up in fields and carparks near housing estates, featuring Hokkien (a popular, but officially discouraged Chinese dialect) songs, saucy comics, and ridiculous costumes. Royston Tan’s new film 881 (released on National Day no less) celebrates the form as an enduring folk art, while embracing its kitschiest and most sentimental tendencies. While local critics have been quick to dub it ‘commercial’, it retains a subversive edge. Cinematic exuberance may make getai cool, but like the awkward memories of Invisible City it won’t fit into the parade any time soon.

Published in Ekran, 2007 (September/October)

The general proclamation echoed around Vancouver residents is that the city – commonly nicknamed »Hollywood North« – is THE place to be for movie people. Putting stock in such a statement may not depend on determining its validity as truth or fabrication, but on a person’s own cinematic priorities. I cannot speak for Metropolises in lands abroad, but when it comes to Canadian cities, not one comes close to Vancouver’s mystifying display of the seventh art form’s split personality – the age old confusion between its role as glamour machine on wheels, incorporating any group or individual that either plays a part in greasing its wheels or the simple excited waving as it travels by, and its function as a cultural and creative outlet for skilled artists to form, and astute human receptors to ruminate over. Therefore, the stone-chiseled local outlook in my home city – the one that deems the area the »it« place to be for cinematic aspirations – is an assertion that will reveal itself in a person’s own determining of what side of the movies’ dual persona is most relevant and identifiable to them. Make no mistake; Vancouver is a movie service town, equivalent to an olden day railway town. Whether it’s the X-Men franchise or the latest Ben Stiller blockbuster, this city is a prime pit-stop for some of the most vaunted Hollywood production vehicles passing through for a complete working, before returning back to their home-base for the final creative touches prior to being shipped off to the multiplexes― where proud Vancouver residents can point to the screenings’ end credits at the names they recognize. There seems to be an inordinate amount of pride for most people here in knowing anyone who rolled cable or served Craft service on one of these movies; as there is gratification in recognizing a nearby street, or acquaintances’ living room. In this respect Vancouver is a booming movie spot, a strip of land that somehow managed to come close enough architecturally to be able to mimic certain American cities on celluloid, and that took advantage of a weaker national currency that enabled the transient Tinseltown producers to keep a longer leash on their budgets. But what of the Vancouver citizens who actually want to create moving pictures? As a bourgeoning filmmaker, I can speak from experience when I say it is a different picture than the one always painted by the city’s biggest promoters. It is one thing to have practically no industry to call our own, but it is even sadder when independent work is prevented from happening at every turn. Since Vancouver knows only the servicing of Multi-Million dollar Hollywood films, every business, residential home, and other potential set is wise to the highest value of a day’s filming in their space. Unions and the municipality are scarcely less helpful― the former charging high minimum fees even for non-professional crew members or actors, the latter making any second of outdoor shooting an extremely expensive and restrictive process. The only form of leniency from any of these gatekeepers comes solely through participation in promotional film contests where the participants have 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit their short works. It is particularly irksome to fathom that the only way to get support in your city as a filmmaker is to have to lessen the quality and preparation of your work to fit into a certain »festivity«. Then again, these back-handed encouragements to build some sort of cinematic foundation with our own talent goes hand in glove with the unspoken mantra of the city – the appeal and surface are what make the cinema, and those who take part don’t need to build, so long as they share a part of the glitz; Vancouver has chosen its side of the movies’ dual persona.

Published in Ekran, 2007 (July/August)

Barcelona es la ciudad en la que vivo y a la que debo la mitad exacta de mi formación, pero no la amo. Nunca he sentido nada por ella; como a una amante con la que sólo buscamos el placer egoísta, la utilizo. La usé hace tiempo, me fue útil, pero cuando me cansé de ella, cuando apareció otra, la tiré. Sigo viviendo en Barcelona por razones prácticas (porque mi padre tiene un apartamento allí y me deja viví en él), como un matrimonio que no se quiere pero no se separa por comodidad.

He amado con todo mi corazón Roma, la ciudad de mi vida, y después Nueva York; también Nápoles, sin haber estado nunca allí, significa mucho en mi vida. Son estas ciudades y, sobretodo, su imaginario de las que yo debería hablar en este artículo, y no Bacelona, ¿alguien puede realmente “amar” Barcelona?

Todo lo que sé de cine lo aprendí allí, pero no “de allí”. La pasión, el gran impulso, que surge siempre de la vida y que me obligó (por pereza, yo quería ser un gran escritor, pero no tuve fuerzas para ni siquiera intentarlo, aunque no pierdo la esperanza) a hacer cine, a hacer el cine que hago, que me “escogió” a mi para ser su representante, esta pasión digo, surgió de mi pueblo natal, Banyoles, en el noreste de Catalunya, a cincuenta quilómetros de la frontera con Francia. En este caso es al revés, a pesar de que yo soy el representante de este pequeño pueblo (todos mis actores, técnicos, socios, etc., son de allí; es decir, prácticamente toda la gente que trabaja conmigo), que yo manipulo a mi antojo, no me engaño, es a la inversa. Yo soy el amante ultrajado i humillado constantemente que no puede dejar a esta querida femme fatale. Me ofende, cada día más, ahora ya es muy fea, ha envejecido, se construyen pisos horribles (que durarán para siempre!), viene gente de fuera igualmente horrible que no conozco a ocupar estos pisos, la gente joven que viene detrás de mi generación es muy ignorante, no conoce nada y tiene muy mal gusto; y toda la gente que yo amaba, todas los personajes pintorescos, inolvidables, casi legendarios, se están muriendo o han muerto ya. Yo tengo ya treinta un años, y pronto no quedará nada de la poesía que me ha formado, del imaginario increíble, muy cercano sino idéntico al imaginario que inspiró a Dalí, o a Josep Pla. Pero sigo enamorado. Y cuando hago algo, en verdad sólo me importa lo que pensará de ello la gente de mi pueblo, cuya opinión me provoca siempre una ligera ansiedad.

La otra mitad de mi formación, la cultural, no la genética, la encontré en Barcelona. Vivo allí des de los diecisiete años i jamás he sentido la más mínima fascinación por esta ciudad. Pero en ella encontré algo que no hubiera podido encontrar en ninguna otra parte: el Dictionnaire du cinéma de Jacques Lourcelles, Le Cinéma selon Melville, el Nouvelle Vague de Jean Douchet o los tres volúmenes en edición de bolsillo de Godard par Godard. Los libros de Robin Wood, James Agee o Many Farber ya los compré mas tarde por Internet. Allí también compré las conversaciones de Jean Duflot con Pasolini (el segundo libro de cine que leí en mi vida, i el primero que compré en Barcelona; antes sólo había leído una monografía sobre Bergman) i muchos libros sobre Buñuel, pero esto fue antes de instalarme allí a los diecisiete años.

En mi vida he visto mucho cine (después de estar un año viajando por festivales puedo afirmar tranquilamente que no he conocido a ningún director de mi generación que haya visto más que yo –aunque sí, por supuesto, algunos críticos-). Pero mi gran influencia en mi forma de hacer cine fueron (aparte de la gente de mi pueblo) los libros de los grandes críticos, los más personales y arbitrarios, como le gustaría a Baudelaire (y en este campo sí que puedo afirmar que no he conocido a ningún director que tuviera el más mínimo conocimiento sobre estos temas –aunque ninguno tenía la personalidad de un Paradjanov, quien afirmaba no haber leído un libro en su vida, porque consideraba que los libros eran una influencia nociva para un cineasta, pues tenia que crear imágenes sólo desde su cabeza-).

Así se entiende que mi gran deseo secreto sea todavía, quizás más fuerte que nunca, dejar Barcelona i instalarme en Roma, en la plaza Minerva, como el protagonista de Extinción de Thomas Bernhard, para dedicarme a mi primera pasión, la literatura. Y a lo mejor, también a partir de ella puedo salvar otra vez el cine, pues como dice Sokurov, “sólo los que amen la literatura por encima del cine podrán salvarlo de su destrucción”.

Published in Ekran, 2007, April/May

By Benjamin McKay

The recent success of Malaysian films on the international festival circuit comes as no surprise to those of us who have been watching the recent independent films emanating from Kuala Lumpur and supporting their development over the past seven years or so. A small but dynamic burgeoning independent film culture exists now in the Malaysian capital and the other film cultures of Southeast Asia have begun to take an active interest in developments in new Malaysian cinema. With Tan Chui Mui’s recent success at Pusan and Rotterdam for Love Conquers All (2006) and the award of the International Jury Prize in Berlin to Yasmin Ahmad’s Mukhsin (2006) it seems the world has finally realized the value of the work being produced in Malaysia.

The independent film community in Kuala Lumpur works parallel alongside an existing and long established mainstream commercial film industry. The Malaysian mainstream has however rarely in the past forty years or so managed to make much of an impact outside of its own national borders. Producing Malay language films and featuring largely Malay performers and storylines these films often ignore the cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity that is a feature of plural Malaysian society. The mainstream cinema is an ethnic rather national cinema. The emerging independent film culture challenges that narrowness by embracing the diversity of the society that is producing it.

The Malay language film industry does however have an impressive lineage born out of a studio based production culture that was largely centered in the city of Singapore. Singapore was a part of the British colonially controlled larger Malay world until it became an independent city state in 1965. The first screenings of films commenced in what was then Malaya in 1901 and the region has consistently had some of the largest cinema attendance figures in the world since those days. Local productions in the Malay language began being produced during the 1930s. Production stopped during the years of the Japanese occupation, but commenced again in the post war era after 1947.

The two studios that helmed what is collectively known now as the Golden Years (Era Emas) of Malay cinema were the Shaw Brothers controlled Malay Film Productions and its competitor Cathay-Keris. The studios controlled production of local films and also had power over the distribution and exhibition of all films in the colony. Both studios had strong connections throughout the region and production arms in Hong Kong that meant the local Chinese population of the colony had their film requirements met. The studios were Chinese controlled but made Malay films that were, at least in the early days of the industry, largely directed by Indians.

The 1950s and 1960s were indeed fruitful years for Malay cinema. During a turbulent period that saw guerilla war, the negotiated compromises of independence from British rule, the creation of Malaysia and the eventual expulsion of Singapore from that federation, the film industry continued to flourish. Directors like Hussain Haniff and M. Amin built strong and critically acclaimed careers, and the versatile and iconic P. Ramlee managed to excel as an actor, singer, composer, director and writer building an impressive body of work that still towers over the cultural landscapes of contemporary Malaysia and Singapore years after his death. During this fertile period some 350 films were made locally. Films from that era that are still watched and much loved in Malaysia include Penarik Beca (The Trishaw Driver, P. Ramlee, 1955), Hang Tuah (Phani Majumdar, 1956, Antara Dua Darjat (Between Two Classes, P. Ramlee, 1960) and Dang Anom (Hussain Haniff, 1962).

Several factors led to the decline of the studio system including the separation of Singapore from Malaysia, the need to move production to Kuala Lumpur, the rise of television ownership and the inability to sustain profits on local productions. By 1972 the studio culture based in Singapore was largely dead and a period of decline in the film industries of both countries followed. By the 1980s however we see the slow development of a handful of quality films made under the auspices of both the private studios and with the assistance and support of government agencies and policies designed to reinvigorate the local industry, including the establishment of FINAS – the National Film Development Board.

During the 1980s and 1990s the flag bearers of Malaysian cinema were directors such as Rahim Razali, Shuhaimi Baba and U-Wei Hajisaari whose film Kaki Bakar (The Arsonist, 1993) was screened in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes. Some notable films with a distinctly independent spirit at this time include Matinya Seorang Patriot Death of a Patriot, Rahim Razali, 1984), Selubung (The Veiled, Shuhaimi Baba, 1992), Seman (The Lost Hero, Mansor Puteh, 1987) and Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchestee (From Jemapoh to Manchester, Hishamuddin Rais, 1998). These films did however need to compete with mainstream commercial films made to formulas that worked well with local audiences.

It was however the great advances in digital filmmaking and the capacity for access to inexpensive equipment and software that gave a new generation of filmmakers the capacity to explore filmmaking as a means of telling new, interesting and culturally embracive Malaysian stories. This new generation was also aware of the social, political and cultural changes that had taken place in the country following the fallout of the so-called reformasi movement in the late 1990s. The ethos of independent filmmaking practices was mirrored in a new spirit of nascent but palpable grass roots democratization. The new millennium ushered in new possibilities.

The first feature film to deal with interracial relationships, including both cross cultural love affairs and gay love was Teck Tan’s ambitious Spinning Gasing (Spinning Top, 2001). The film was largely formulaic and attempted to find access to a mainstream audience but it was daring in that it dealt with issues that were largely taboo on Malaysian screens. That it suffered cuts was just a further indication of the restraints that censorship places on films and filmmakers in contemporary Malaysia. The film is notable too in that it placed non-Malay Malaysians in leading roles and had them communicating with each other largely in English.

One of the earliest indie films was made by a graduate of the Malaysian Film Academy, Osman Ali, whose confronting work Bukak Api (Open Fire, 1999) focused on sex workers and transvestites in the Chow Kit neighborhood of Kuala Lumpur. Originally slated as an educational video for the city’s sex workers, the film was infused with enough narrative substance to accord it something of a local cult status and it went on to screen at festivals internationally. Also receiving some exposure to the international festival circuit was a quirky and amusing film Lips to Lips (2000) by the young writer and filmmaker Amir Muhammad. As a strategy for circumventing the national censors Amir screened his work as a part of a multimedia theatre/installation production in venues not normally regarded as theatres or cinemas. A tradition of private or membership screenings developed and is continued through to today.

One of the salient features of the movement of independent filmmakers that emerged in Kuala Lumpur from 2000 onwards has been the sense of community and the spirit of collaboration. The scene itself is small and as it generates little by way of large sums of money the need to be cooperative and collaborative has infused the movement with a very supportive ethos that is often the envy of other Southeast Asian independent film cultures. A director may turn up as a Director of Photography or an editor on a fellow director’s new film – indeed many of the credits for these films are like a roll call of the scene itself. Having said that it is important to note that the leading figures in indie Malaysian filmmaking take their mentoring responsibilities very seriously and a second wave of young practitioners has begun to emerge.

The indie movement itself would not exist without the continuing support of a small but fundamentally important organization called Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia (The Malaysian Art Film Society) helmed by the tireless hard work of its President Wong Tuck Cheong and supported by local luminaries such as Hassan Muthalib and the filmmakers Bernard Chauly, Ho Yuhang and Amir Muhammad. The regular screenings of shorts and documentaries have been a showcase that has launched many of the promising and noticeable careers of young Malaysian filmmakers.

Distinctive for his essayed documentaries that blur the boundaries of the genre itself, Amir Muhammad has been at the forefront of indie Malaysian filmmaking. His work includes The Big Durian (2003) a blisteringly affectionate portrait of the political, ethnic, religious and social firmament of contemporary Kuala Lumpur. This work critiques the cleavages and ruptures that need to be negotiated on a daily basis in this complex and dynamic city. It also explores the manner in which rumour becomes truth in a society where information is jealously guarded. In The Year of Living Vicariously (2005) Amir explores the nexus between memory, politics and myth in his neighboring Indonesia. Tokyo Magic Hour (2005) was an innovative experimental work that used assembled found text to narrate the rise and fall of a gay relationship against a visual backdrop of Japanese alienation.

Amir Muhammad’s documentaries Lelaki Komunis Terakhir (The Last Communist, 2006) and Apa Khabar Orang Kampung (Village People Radio Show, 2007) navigate their way backwards and forwards across time and place to explore the legacies of communism in Malaysia and the landscapes and urban settings that conceal that hidden history. For his efforts these two films were banned respectively in Malaysia, but have both had considerable success internationally. His earlier collection of short films, 6horts (2002) works collectively as a suite of essays that touch upon many of the potent issues that tend to shape and colour contemporary Malaysian life.

Another important filmmaker is James Lee who has an impressively diverse body of work to his name. In addition to an array of short films, several of which are quite experimental in nature, James has made some daring and confronting features. The gritty Snipers (2001) and Ah Beng Returns (2001) mix noir chic with indie edge and are paced deftly to synthesize tone with visuality. His films have explored a unique array of relationships in all variations of disfunction and have never been shy of both the surreal and hyper-real. Other important works by this filmmaker include Room To Let (2002), The Beautiful Washing Machine (2004) and Before We Fall in Love Again (2006).

Yasmin Ahmad has managed to make three feature films that were screened commercially and to much critical success. The first of these films Sepet (Slant-Eyes, 2003) caused controversy here in Malaysia for its depiction of an interracial love affair between a young Malay girl from a relatively privileged background and a young Chinese Malaysian boy who makes a living selling pirated DVD’s in a marketplace. The issues of race, religion and class are sensitive ones for Malaysia and conservative elements within the country began attacking Yasmin Ahmad’s work publicly. The fact is however that her films have begun to change Malaysian cinema in profoundly important ways.

With Gubra (Panic, 2005) and Mukhsin (2007) Yasmin Ahmad has continued to push the envelope with regard to her subject matter. She was the first Malay director to address the problems of the other ethnicities in Malaysia in narrative fictional films, giving voice to their marginality. Her critics did not appreciate her subtle but potent critique on the special privileges accorded to Malays under the law. Yasmin Ahmad has with considerable style and flair created an imagined Malaysia on screen. The three feature films are related to one another – many of the same characters appear in all three – but each film shifts subtly away from the others and when seen as an oeuvre we are presented with a magic world shaped as much by imagination and poetry as it is by humour and enthusiastic gusto.

Ho Yuhang, like James Lee, has been influenced in part by the works of both Tsai Ming Liang (originally from Malaysia) and Hou Hsiau Hsien from Taiwan. Referencing influences however does not negate the fact that his films are deeply centered in Malaysia – whether we are in the suburban banality and sprawl of Petaling Jaya in his 2004 Sanctuary or on the fringes of a small town in the heartland of the country in his 2006 film Rain Dogs. Long takes and often slowly paced Ho Yuhang tells achingly painful stories in very beautiful ways. His somber and deep explorations of people at the margins are all given a very humane treatment through his adherence to careful composition and stark aesthetics. Ho Yuhang is a major filmmaker and while his use of Chinese dialects means his films get classified locally as International (they do not meet the very restrictive and somewhat chauvinistic official cultural definitions of what makes something Malaysian) his work brings great variety to the dynamism of the indie movement in Malaysia.

Tan Chui Mui whose films range from the short but sublime A Tree In Tanjung Malim (2005) to her humorous but painful look at masculinity in Company of Mushrooms (2006) is a part of what might be seen as the second wave of young Malaysian filmmakers. With the success of her feature film Love Conquers All (2006) at international festivals and a growing acceptance at home at last that these indie films have a place on the nations screens the future looks bright for Malaysian cinema. Other young filmmakers whose work is worth seeking out include Azharr Rudin and Deepak Kumaran Menon.

The indie scene has begun to infuse the mainstream – not just through people moving into that arena to work, but through a growing awareness within the industry more broadly that there is an audience at home for intelligent, embracive cinema that speaks to and for all Malaysians. Filmmakers like Bernard Chauly made the cross over with his hugely successful Gol & Gincu (2005) and followed it up recently with his delightful adolescent road movie Goodbye Boys. Even Amir Muhammad this year will release his first mainstream movie Susuk (The Charm) and many indie filmmakers now see the possibility of being able to bridge the divide more permanently without compromising either their independence or their sense of community and cooperation. In spite of continuing restrictions from local censorship and some perhaps dated and obsolete policies still being enforced on to the cultural landscape of the country, Malaysian cinema has over the past seven or so years blossomed – heralding indeed something of a renaissance on Malaysian screens.

I am writing dually from the two cities that, more than any of others, have been forced upon me by life circumstances: São Paulo, Brazil, and Chicago, USA – cities that, in just about every which way imaginable, have little correspondence, except of course in their vast differences. Having just returned from a month-long stay in the South American megalopolis to the Midwestern “windy city” – where I live for most of the year –, these differences are rather simple to define: São Paulo is tropical and temperately pleasant while Chicago tends to push its seasonal limits (enduring bitterly long winters is unfortunately a reality here); São Paulo is situated in an underdeveloped country and the poverty is everywhere while Chicago – like most major U.S. cities – tends to hide (i.e. segregate) its destitution from the glossy business landscape that dominates downtown areas; and lastly, São Paulo is a thriving industry city and even gets to call itself the economic center of Latin America while Chicago lost its claim as the “second city” (next to New York) when Midwestern industry began to disperse to neighboring towns a quarter of a century ago in a successful attempt to raise living wages (we have a nifty word for it: gentrification).

Of course, the growth of cities becomes intrinsic in discussing the cultures that exist within them, and both São Paulo and Chicago, with their long histories, are culturally rich. One could say that in both places the citizens share an indifference to culture – that is, not including football and baseball culture, respectively – that tends to dissolve the ambitions of well-intentioned cultural patrons in their efforts to achieve a sophistication on the scale of Paris, New York, or Tokyo. In my experience the indifference of city life in São Paulo comes from the economic reality that most of its residents are out of work, and the resulting bustle and hardship does not leave much room for historical or aesthetic questions. It is in this that SP’s cultural patrons are SCREAMING for recognition, as the Brazilian artistic subsidy system has to constantly defend its worth to a corrupt and self-centered government body. In Chicago, on the other hand, the indifference comes from both public and institution – a vicious circle determined simply by a show of tickets sold. It doesn’t help that the city’s artistic spaces are funded privately or by scholarly institutions, which means it’s the self-appointed heads of enterprise and tenured university officials who have the power, and dangerously, remain in power for decades.

But this type of cultural yearning veers into snobbery (and jealousy), so I will discuss and attempt to analyze two examples of what I believe are institutional perversions that exist in these two places. First, São Paulo’s Cinemateca Brasileira, today the only publicly funded all-encompassing film archive in Brazil (and a genuinely splendid place) seems to lack a more visible public showroom for its restoration projects and holdings. Often after a few scattered showings a new print of an important Brazilian film goes straight to DVD and often remains there. (This seems to be a worldwide trend now that I think about it.) On a visit to the Cinemateca a couple years ago, one of its archivists told me that the pay comes on a project-by-project basis – so that you may show up to work but not necessarily expect to be compensated for such essential tasks as general archival maintenance and cataloguing. But when a famous Brazilian film with a long ink trail in the big newspapers ensures a grant, most if not all of the (fiscal) emphasis unfortunately goes to that one work, ensuring historical biases in the limited history of Brazilian film that we have. Second perversion: Chicago’s Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, once a beacon of adventurous programming, has become a movie theater like any other, prioritizing current art-house mediocrities and content documentaries over comprehensive retrospective offerings. The Film Center moved to a new space a few years ago and now has to pay substantial rent for its prime location (again the fucking gentrification). So it, like the city where it desperately tries to survive, is a loose vector with potentialities that are curbed by this system of numbers. The grain of art used to exist at the ground level, even at places like the Film Center; but now it is impossible to use the Film Center – or indeed any Chicago institution geared towards film – on an interactive level. Interactivity at least ensures change, and right now Chicago is stagnating at the institutional level.

As for the moviegoers in São Paulo and Chicago: that’s a different story, a different postcard. Suffice it to say that this part is growing and I feel optimistic about the younger generation – paraphrasing from Balzac, they see movement in the terrible immobility that confronts us.

Published in Ekran, 2007 (February/March)