From Criticine News (31 August 2010)

In Alexis’s last blog entry on August 29 2009 he wrote:

DEAR FILM DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL OF THE PHILIPPINES

I saw this poster recently in the National Film Archive of Thailand, an institution that has done so much with so little and continues to do more (I believe you can learn much from them), and thought it would be useful to share it with you:

—

Alexis wrote this a few weeks after he Nika, and Lav Diaz visited the Thai Film Archive. They had come to Bangkok that precious week last year for an event Lav would later describe as a “very prole” restrospective of his films. It would never have happened without the kindness of the three good souls from Manila who had taken the time to come – to come to talk and listen, each so acute in words and yet were better listeners still. Out of gratitude for their sincere approach to our homestyle event, we wanted to show them an indie spirit shrine.

So one night we took Alexis, Nika and Lav hurtling along the city’s never-ending elevated highway to a province bordering Bangkok. Out there among the abandoned fields and half-finished condos nestle a cluster of modest buildings in which the Thai Film Archive lives. There is a small restoration and storage bungalow, a cramped library inside an adapted storage carriage, and a museum. Dome Sukwong, the founder of an archive now in its 26th year and which for the most part has been living off a pitiful annual budget, showed them around. Inside the museum, Dome got Alexis to crank an old camera. A flickering image of a miniature figure appeared on the wall – a king takes a step in 1897. “Faster!” the guardian of the spirit shrine whispered to Alexis. It was a wondrous minute, like watching magic passing hands from the bearded visionary to the fresh-faced one with an infectious laugh.

After Alexis and Nika flew back to Manila, Lav mentioned that the humble scale of the archive, its quiet persistence, had resonated strongly with Alexis. The night before the visit, the question of how films die in Southeast Asia had already found its way to us. We had met up with the archivist Brigitte Paulowitz, who has a special interest in film archiving in the region and has helped to train people for the Thai archive. The conversation quickly turned to a topic that was bothering both Alexis and Lav, and which he subsequently wrote up on this blog: the push for digitisation of old films in countries such as the Philippines where much still remains to be done in terms of storing prints in acceptable condition. It was a rich, long night around a bar table on the pavement, a crash course in archiving dilemmas, with Brigitte setting us right on a few myths. In terms of storage, it’s not necessarily cheaper to transfer film prints to digital, and in terms of longevity there is no comparison between the two. With intelligent use of vernacular architectural knowledge it’s possible to construct storage buildings in Southeast Asia that won’t cost the earth to run. Look to archives in the region for examples of what’s being done successfully. For thinking on storage, look to Laos rather than take as the starting point the fanciful notion of the handsomely resourced archives of the West.

A sense of possibilities against impossible odds. I guess Alexis might have been struck by this. Or at least it would have been characteristic of him to draw from our nocturnal encounters this kind of inspiration, and then to take it upon himself to speak out about the hard things and the possibilities already around.

—

The next issue of Criticine hopes to build on Alexis’s call for a serious look at archiving decisions and practices in the region, and we would gladly welcome contributions on such topics as:

Archives in Southeast Asia – institutions, collections, practices, histories
Possiblities, polemics, controversies
Archive footage or other material in film, video, artistic practice
Private archives, non-institutional forms of collection
Archiving Southeast Asia – materials held outside the region
Interviews with archivists, collectors, filmmakers
Any other topics that resonate with Alexis’s blog and that you feel should be included in this issue

Please email us at criticine1@gmail.com

Criticine.com | about founder Alexis A. Tioseco

National Foreign Language Resource Center Fall 2010 Demos and Discussions
Wednesday, October 13, 12:00 pm in Moore 258
Presented by Pia Arboleda, Assistant Professor of Filipino and Philippine Literature at the Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures

Literary texts and films are excellent tools for teaching language and culture. However, for heritage learners, Tagalog texts and Filipino films without subtitles are incomprehensible. Thus, there is a great need for translation and subtitling in order to produce bilingual materials. But the process of translation itself can be used as a tool to teaching Philippine language and culture. This presentation will explain the course design and method of teaching Filipino 435: Translation Theory and Practice. In this course students are asked to transcibe the original text in Filipino. This process hones their listening skills. Next, student conduct research on the historical and cultural background of the film or text they are translating. The process of translation allows them to apply the translation theories they have learned and to exercise critical and creative thought in order to produce an accurate and effective translation.

The presentation includes samples of bilingual materials like film clips, song adaptations, and digital storybooks and how they are used in the classroom.

contact Jim Yoshioka @ sltcc@hawaii.edu | more info

Dr. PIA ARBOLEDA is assistant professor of Filipino and Philippine Literature at the Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures where she teaches ‘Translation Theory and Practice,’ ‘Philippine History and Culture,’ and ‘Philippine Folklore.’ She received her doctorate degree in Language and Literature from De La Salle University, Manila. Prior to joining University of Hawaii at Manoa, she taught Philippine Literature, Language and History at Osaka University for four and a half years. She has translated and subtitled Raymond Red’s “Sakay” and Jon Red’s “Ilusyon.” Dr. Arboleda is now working on the translation and subtitles of Eddie Romero’s “Noli Me Tangere” 13-episode TV series. She is also a poet and creative writer. Her works have appeared in ‘Forbidden Fruit: Women Write the Erotic,’ ‘Kung Ibig Mo: Love Poetry by Women,’ and ‘Essays on Women’, among others.

Wednesday, 1 September
6:30 p.m. – Korean Studies Auditorium

Philippines 2003 (120 min)
Tagalog with English subtitles
Dir: Maryo J. De Los Reyes
Screenplay: Michiko Yamamoto
Cast: Lorna Tolentino, Albert Martinez, Gloria Romero, Celia Rodriguez, Mark Gil, Tonton Gutierrez, Jiro Manio, Amy Austria, Cherry Pie Picache, Isabella de Leon

Inay (Lorna Tolentino) speaks for many when she says, ”Life is a never-ending misery.”

Her 7-year-old daughter, Helen (Isabella de Leon), has cerebral palsy, has never spoken a word and requires as much care as an infant. Her teenage son has lost his scholarship and come home from Manila to an uncertain future. Her other son, 9-year-old Magnifico (Jiro Manio), doesn’t show much promise beyond being a really sweet kid. Her beaten-down husband (Albert Martínez) has been working on the same Rubik’s cube for a year.

And she has just learned that her mother-in-law, who lives with them, has pancreatic cancer. That’s one more helpless person to care for, and they have no idea where they’re going to get the 30,000 pesos or so (several months’ salary for a schoolteacher, we are told) it will take to bury her.

But the hopefully named Magnifico, in the tradition of omniscient innocents in international films, is determined to help — and to charm everyone the way movie characters occasionally do, just by treating impending death matter-of-factly. He sets out to earn enough money for his grandmother’s funeral, buy her a beautiful white dress to be buried in and gather enough scrap wood to build the coffin himself. But this drama isn’t as maudlin as it sounds, thanks to the leading actors’ fine, understated performances. (Anita Gates, New York Times)

Magnifico was awarded Best Feature Film at the Hawaii International Film Festival (2003) and the Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk Grand Prix at the Berlin International Film Festival (2004). It is being shown here with a new subtitle track produced by Brigida Schmidt, a student in our Spring 2010 subtitling course.

IMDB | Wikipedia | NYTimes Review | Film Otaku Review | Download Poster

This July, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies remembers Malaysian filmmaker, storyteller, and humanitarian Yasmin Ahmad.

[Source: malaysiana1] Yasmin Ahmad (January 07, 1958 – July 25, 2009) was a critically-acclaimed multi-award winning film director, writer and scriptwriter from Malaysia and was also the executive creative director at Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur.

Her television commercials and films are well-known in Malaysia for their humour, heart and love that cross cultural barriers, in particular her ads for Petronas, the national oil and gas company.

Her works have won multiple awards both within Malaysia and internationally.

A graduate in arts majoring in psychology from Newcastle University, she worked as a trainee banker in 1982 for two weeks.

She then joined IBM as a marketing representative.

Yasmin began her career in advertising as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather in the same period.

In 1993 she moved to Leo Burnett as creative director and eventually became executive creative director.

Her first film was Rabun (Failing Sight) in 2002.

Yasmin’s films have won many international awards and praise from critics and public alike.

Most of her films have been screened at the Berlin, San Francisco, Singapore and Cannes international film festivals.

Her films were featured in a special retrospective at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival 2006.

They were also featured in a 2007 retrospective by the Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Yasmin passed away of a stroke at 11.25pm on July 25, 2009.

She fell unconscious in her chair at 3.30pm on July 23 at private television station TV3 in Petaling Jaya.

At that time she was having a meeting with the TV3 management and Malaysian pop queen Datuk Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin for a coming project.

Yasmin was hospitalised at the Damansara Specialist Hospital a short distance from TV3 and underwent neurosurgery on the same day.

She never regained consciousness.

She was buried in Subang Jaya, where she lived.

Yasmin made six films in her short but illustrious career.

They were Rabun (2003), Sepet [Chinese Eyes] (2004), Gubra [Anxiety] (2006), Mukhsin (2007), Muallaf [The Reverter] (2008) and Talentime (2009).

She also acted in the films Rain Dogs and Susuk, among others.

She won several awards for her television commercials that promoted national unity and humanitarian values, in Malaysia and Singapore.

Sepet won best film in the Malaysian Film Festival 2005. Gubra won best film the following year.

Sepet also won the Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2005.

Mukhsin won Best Feature Film at the Berlin International Film Festival 2007 and Best Asean (Southeast Asian) Film at the Cinemanila International Film Festival 2007.

Muallaf won the Asian Film Award – Special Mention at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2008.

Yasmin was the eldest of three siblings from Muar, Johor. She was of Malay and Japanese ancestry.

She is survived by her parents, a brother and a sister, and her husband Tan Yew Leong, the creative director of Leo Burnett.

flickr | imdb | 2007 UH Yasmin Ahmad Retrospective (twitch)
yasmin blogs project | yasmin the storyteller | yasmin the filmmaker

Panel(s): Southeast Asian Cinema
Deadline: 15 July 2010

The Center would like to identify scholars interested in presenting papers on Southeast Asian cinema at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference in Honolulu – March 31-April 3, 2011 (even if you have already submitted a paper to AAS…we’d like to know about people working on SEAn film!). With the AAS looking to expand their range of topics and noting that a larger convention space will allow for a greater number of panels, we are interested in organizing panels on SEA cinema themes to include (but not limited to) Vietnamese film, women filmmakers, films adapted from works of literature, translating SEAn film, and Islam in film.

If you or someone you know is interested in being included on such a panel(s), please contact us at cseas@hawaii.edu and include your name, institutional affiliation, and proposed paper title and short abstract (please include “SEA Cinema-AAS”in the subject bar). Since the deadline for paper submission to AAS is August 5, please send us a statement of interest no later than July 15. This is an organizational effort only. Sadly, we are not offering travel subsidies at this time. Thanks for your interest in Southeast Asian cinema. We look forward to seeing everyone in Honolulu in 2011!

This course represents part four of the Southeast Asian Cinema courses, alongside Cinema of Southeast Asia, Cinema of Thailand, and Cinema of Indonesia. The instructor has provided a course summary and list of selected readings; the complete syllabus (with readings, films, etc.) will be available closer to the start of the fall semester.

Course information | Instructor: S. O’Harrow | Thursdays 12:00 – 2:45 p.m. | 3 credits | syllabus

Anon., n.d., “South Vietnamese actress Kieu Chinh – a short bio-filmography”

Corrigan, Timothy, 1998, A Short Guide to Writing about Film –
-Ch. 3 Topics & Terms
-Ch. 4 Writing about Film

Do, Tess, 2006, “Bar girls and Street Cinderella: Women, Sex and Prostitution in Le Hoang’s Commercial films”

Doherty, Thomas, 2010, “The Death of Film Criticism”

Greene, Graham, 1955, The Quiet American

Hamilton, Annette, 2009, “Renovated: Gender and Cinema in Contemporary Vietnam”

Harris, Jack, 2005, “Nostalgia for the Countryside, directed by Dang Nhat Minh”

Nam Cao, 1941, Chí Phèo

Nam Cao, 1943, Old Hac

Ngo Phuong Lan, 2007, Modernity and Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema – Appendix I: Vietnamese Film: a brief history

Nguyen Huy Thiep, 1989?, Nostalgia for the Countryside Phillips, Richard & James Steffin, n.d., “The Quiet American as film – two views”

Westrup, Laurel, 2006, “Toward a New Canon: The Vietnamese Conflict Through Vietnamese Lenses”

This summer, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies is working on translating and subtitling selected episodes of the controversial Indonesian political satire television series, Republik Mimpi (Republic of Dreams). Acquired by UH SEA collection librarian, Rohayati Paseng-Christensen, the collection is currently archived as part of the Southeast Asia Digital Library at Northern Illinois University. The two-person subtitling team working on this project is hoping to complete five episodes that will be available for access in Fall 2010. This effort marks the first subtitled versions of Republik Mimpi to be made available to English-language researchers.

Special mahalo to Kelli Swazey for the following Reuters article.

Political satire tests Indonesian media freedom / Ed Davies / JAKARTA / Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:16am GMT

(Source: Reuters) – Poking fun at Indonesian politicians would have been unimaginable a decade ago, but a local television show in which actors play government leaders is breaking taboos in the young democracy and winning audiences.

Media freedom in Indonesia has come a long way since mass protests in 1998 ended the iron-fisted rule of former president Suharto, whose government severely shackled the press.

“We are free but now it is up to us to use this freedom,” said Effendi Gazali, a media professor at the University of Indonesia who helped devise the twice weekly shows — “Republik Mimpi” (Republic of Dreams) — and who also appears on them.

Gazali, who said he had received death threats over the show, was inspired by learning that many Americans got their political information from Jon Stewart’s political parody “The Daily Show”.

The series — originally called “Republik Benar Benar Mabuk” (Drunken Republic) — was launched two years ago and has a format consisting of a panel of look-alike politicians in front of a live audience lampooning the nation’s leaders past and present.

So, one character is based on former president B.J. Habibie, an engineer who was famously obsessed with turning Indonesia into a technological powerhouse. Another portrays former president Abdurrahman Wahid, who in real life was often seen nodding off in meetings and who spends much of the show dozing.

“Republik Mimpi” also mirrors elements of the British TV series “Spitting Image” launched in the 1980s that used puppets to mock establishment figures from royalty to Margaret Thatcher.

While not as biting as most western political satires, partly reflecting a Javanese tradition of respect for authority figures, the series has upset some in the establishment.

In March, local media reported the then information minister, Sofyan Djalil, accused the show of giving “negative political education” and threatened to report it to the broadcasting commission over complaints he said he got from the public.

“Republik Mimpi” often grabs laughs at the expense of the perceived prickly relationship between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a former general who is sometimes seen as indecisive, and his outspoken vice president, Jusuf Kalla, who is widely expected to run against him in the 2009 election.

Yet the show tends to shy away from going for the jugular, often simply playing up personal traits in politicians or fairly gentle parodying.

“Probably we can call our program the most polite political parody in the world,” said Gazali.

The actor who plays the president, or Si Butet dari Yogya as he is known on the show (the same SBY initials as Yudhoyono), said the real president had no problem with the show.

“I believe that a show like this has a big role in educating people in democratic values — at least we can ask them to always be critical when dealing with life,” said the actor, Butet Kartaredjasa, relaxing after a Sunday night show. Wearing a traditional black Indonesian hat, round glasses and a brown shirt, he looked uncannily like the real president.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Agus Apriyanti, a student from Bandung Islam University, who was in the audience for a recent “Republik Mimpi” airing, said the show worked because it “used simple language so that people can understand the real political situation and press freedom.”

“They use satire and it goes straight to the heart,” added the 20-year-old journalism major, who wore a Muslim head-scarf.

Alongside media freedom gains and an explosion in the number of publications and TV programs, there have also been setbacks.

In particular, activists say flaws in the legal system have sometimes allowed unwarranted cases to be brought against the media, threatening freedom of expression.

Time magazine was recently ordered to pay over $100 million (48 million pounds) to former leader Suharto in libel damages after the Supreme Court overturned two lower court rulings in the U.S. weekly’s favor.

Janet Steele, an associate professor at The George Washington University who has closely tracked the Indonesian media, said via email the media faced ongoing problems of a weak legal system and a general lack of understanding among judges of press laws.

Although optimistic about media freedom overall, she said that another chilling effect came not from authorities but from hardline Islamic or nationalist groups sometimes intimidating or physically attacking Indonesian journalists for supposed slurs.

“Republik Mimpi” tries to take on serious issues and Sujarwo, the actor portraying the vice president, with his trademark moustache, said he believed it had an important role to educate.

The wife of a murdered human rights activist took part in a recent show, explaining how a campaign to win justice for her dead husband was proceeding.

“So far, the press has been extraordinarily supportive,” Suciwati, whose husband Munir Thalib was poisoned on a flight to the Netherlands in 2004, told Reuters after her appearance.

Prosecutors are trying to overturn a Supreme Court move to clear a key suspect, who has been linked to the state spy agency.

The show has also taken on issues such as deadly flooding in the capital Jakarta, partly blamed on incompetent bureaucrats.

Despite its brushes with authorities, a number of politicians including the vice president have appeared on the show, but Gazali said he recognized a need to keep some distance.

“We don’t want to be close to the government, to the establishment. Because we know exactly that this is the kind of program that should maintain credibility.”

(Additional reporting by Mita Valina Liem, editing by Megan Goldin)

Reuters article

1 – 4 July 2010 at IDECAFE, Ho Chi Minh City, VIET NAM

The Annual Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference (ASEACC) began in May 2004 with the inaugural conference organized by and held at the Asia Research Institute-National University of Singapore. An organising committee comprising young scholars and film practitioners was formed shortly after 2004 and a decision made to make it an annual event that would rotate through the region: thus far Singapore 2004, Bangkok 2005, Kuala Lumpur 2006 and Jakarta 2007. Future conferences are planned for Manila 2008, and Saigon 2009.

The conference aims are to raise the level of film discourse in the region as well as to promote global awareness about Southeast Asian Cinemas as a diverse field of study within film studies and area studies. It seeks to showcase and create academic and social discourse among scholars, film critics, buffs and media activists about the multiple new cinemas from the region, highlighting film as a vehicle for artistic expression, socio-cultural reflection, as an ideological and educational tool and to provide a forum for international networking among participants. The unique feature of the conference is its interdisciplinarity and combination of theory and practice: it is a place where film scholars, anthropologists and sociologists and cultural activists mingle with filmmakers, critics, programmers, archivists, and other film practitioners. The conference usually includes academic panels focusing on contemporary issues facing filmmakers, history, genre, gender and other identities, etc., film screenings and dialogue with film practitioners.

more info

The aim of this introductory course on Contemporary Asian Cinema is to acquaint students with significant films from the major countries in Asia and how these films reflect and comment on profound social, political, and historical changes that have occurred in recent decades. The course will investigate recent films from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan, and a Vietnam, including those made by the diaspora. These films will be approached through a variety of critical perspectives, including formalism, auteurism, and genre theory, watching art films, mainstream commercial films, and films that fall between these two categories. While examining universal themes embodying roles, customs, culture, relationships, identity, and such critical concerns as diaspora, hybridity, transnationalism, an attempt will be made to discern the effects of globalization on the Asian film industry and its changing relationship with Hollywood.

Course information: Summer Session II: 6 July – 13 Aug 2010, MWF 2:00-4:15pm, 3 credits

For information/override permission contact Asian Studies Office 956-6085

Thank you for supporting the Southeast Asia Film Series over the past year! Our final film of the spring semester will be a Director’s Choice. We would like to thank everyone for their support, and we look forward to screening more films for you in the fall! Don’t forget to check out our film listings and upcoming screenings at cseashawaii.com.

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.

-Hafiz of Shiraz, The Gift