US-ASEAN Film Festival 2009:
New Films from Southeast Asia
As one of the world's most dynamic regions, be it economically or culturally, change is a constant in Southeast Asia. Often, these changes happen so rapidly that the society never has the time to get used to them. Instead, new and old, modernity and traditions blend into a rich, colorful, and exciting mélange.
Such contrasts and juxtapositions are the makings of great stories - no wonder the region's cinema has been touted as the up and coming player in global cinema. Most notably at Cannes, arguably the world's premier event for world cinema, Southeast Asian directors came in force this year. Seven films were screened, including Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay which was in competition for the Palme d'Or.
This year, the annual US-ASEAN Film Festival is bringing six new films, never before screened in the nation's capital. The roster this year is: a Malaysian film-noir (When the Full Moon Rises / Mamat Khalid), a Singaporean documentary about ghosts (A Month of Hungry Ghosts / Tony Kern), a psychodrama from Indonesia (Fictions / Mouly Surya), a critique about the disappearing practice of traditional agriculture (Agrarian Utopia / Uruphong Raksasad), one day in a Manila shantytown (Adela / Adolfo Alix Jr.), and a Vietnamese modern-day magical realist fable (The Moon at the Bottom of the Well / Nguyen Vinh Son).
Note: As of September 18, the Freer will no longer require ticket for films. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Auditorium doors will open approximately 30 minutes before each show.
When the Full Moon Rises
 |
|
| Date | Friday September 18, 2009 - 7pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | A hard-boiled crime reporter stumbles onto the strangest story of his life when his car breaks down outside a spooky town being terrorized by a man-hungry lady vampire. Mamat Khalid’s affectionate send-up of classic Malaysian cinema is a heady mixture of horror flicks, detective stories, and musicals. Set in 1956 and beautifully shot in inky film-noir black and white, it’s “a glorious mash up of styles and influences loaded with sumptuous photography, clever writing, a creepy ghost, hysterically funny sight gags, and a sense of play that never fails to engage and surprise” (Todd Brown,Twitch). Malaysia / 2008 / 108 min. / b&w / Malay with English subtitles |
A Month of Hungry Ghosts
 |
|
| Date | Sunday September 20, 2009 - 2pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | Every year in parts of Asia, during the seventh lunar month, it is believed that the gates of hell open, and all the souls are set free to wander the earth and fulfill their past needs, wants, and desires. Tony Kern's documentary captures Singapore's Hungry Ghost Festival, in which each of the city-state's diverse blend of cultures lend their own flavors to a month of ceremonies designed to appease and entertain supernatural visitors. From eerie candle-lit walks in the woods among the spirits, to colorful street opera performances, to an animated tour of the Chinese afterworld, Kern's film delves into one of the most unique facets of Singaporean tradition. Singapore / 2009 / 92 min. / video / Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, and English with English subtitles |
Fiction
 |
|
| Date | Friday, September 25, 2009 - 7 pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | Jakarta proves to be the perfect setting for Gothic-style horror in this haunting psychodrama. Even Edgar Allan Poe would be impressed with the ominous atmosphere first-time director Mouly Surya casts over her tale of Alisha, a pampered rich girl smitten with a handsome writer who draws inspiration from the lives of his neighbors. When Alisha moves in next door, her infatuation with him plunges them into a vortex of obsession, ghosts, and murder, where the line between the living and the dead, fiction and truth, becomes terrifyingly indistinct. Indonesia / 2008 / 110 min. / Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles |
Agrarian Utopia
 |
|
| Date | Sunday, September 27, 2009 - 2 pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | Uruphong Raksasad's portrait of four seasons in the lives of rice farmers in northern Thailand might look like a documentary, but it is actually a carefully crafted fiction. To make it, he rented a rice paddy and hired local families to farm it for him. They then became the actors in the film's narrative about the vanishing practice of traditional agriculture. A native of the area where he filmed, Raksasad creates vivid, lyrical images of the land and sky that form the backdrop for his characters' struggle to maintain their livelihoods as globalism encroaches on their world. Thailand / 2009 / 122 min. / video / Thai with English subtitles |
Adela
| Date | Friday October 16, 2009 - 7pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | This film by Adolfo Alix Jr. is a showcase for the talents of its star, Anita Linda, a fixture in Filipino cinema since the 1940s. She plays a former radio actress now widowed and living in a shantytown whose residents will soon be relocated. The film follows this indomitable, willful fixture of the community as she makes her rounds through the chaotic streets of Manilla on her bittersweet eightieth birthday. “Artfully observed, it's content to let Linda be the sole, compelling focal point” (Dennis Harvey, Variety). Philippines / 2008 / 90 min. / video / Filipino with English subtitles |
The Moon at the Bottom of the Well
| Date | Sunday October 18, 2009 - 2pm |
| Venue | Freer Gallery |
| Location | Meyer Auditorium |
| Details | Hanh, a village schoolteacher who is unable to have children, encourages her husband to take a second wife to bear him a baby. When word of their secret spreads, the erupting scandal forces them to separate. Distraught, Hanh seeks guidance from a mysterious fortune teller, who sets her on the path to spiritual transformation. Beautifully filmed in the lush environs of rural Vietnam, Nguyen Vinh Son's compelling drama is a modern-day magical realist fable. Vietnam / 2008 / 121 min. / Vietnamese with English subtitles |
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
 ASEAN Secretariat |  | |
 Embassy of Republic Indonesia |  Royal Thai Embassy |  Embassy of Singapore |
 Indonesian Ministry of Trade |
||
