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Four Manifestos

Khavn de la Cruz

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Four Manifestos by Filipino Independent Director Khavn de la Cruz

I Sinema Manifesto

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

A short manifesto by key Indonesian independent film makers

Southeast Asian Independent Cinema: Independent of What?

John A. Lent

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

To discuss Southeast Asian Independent Cinema is to encounter problems of definition, first, in trying to delineate the region itself, and second, in setting the parameters of independent film. ... More

To discuss Southeast Asian Independent Cinema is to encounter problems of definition, first, in trying to delineate the region itself, and second, in setting the parameters of independent film. Southeast Asia is a diverse mixture of many languages, cultures, and beliefs pulled together for political convenience; it is a colonial, and later, Cold War construct of Western origins. The region and in turn, its film, are not entities unto themselves; they are inseparable from their Indian, Malay, Chinese, and other roots.Less

Observational Documentary Comes to Indonesia: Aryo Danusiri's Lukas' Moment

David Hanan

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

The essay explores Aryo Danusiri’s observational documentary “Lukas’ Moment”, a film made in Merauke in the province of West Papua. It will situate Danusiri’s first work of observational cinema, ... More

The essay explores Aryo Danusiri’s observational documentary “Lukas’ Moment”, a film made in Merauke in the province of West Papua. It will situate Danusiri’s first work of observational cinema, “Lukas’ Moment”, in the context of the work of a number of key filmmakers who pioneered these interrelated documentary movements, among them, Jean Rouch and Frederick Wiseman, and an Australian documentary collaboration with Aboriginal people made in 1981, “Two Laws”.Less

Imagined Communities, Imagined Worlds: Independent Film From Southeast Asia in the Global Mediascape

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the ... More

The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the political and social situation in the countries where they have been made does not allow for their inclusion into the mainstream of the national cinema, they have turned to an international market to find an audience. I argue that a new generation of film-makers has been empowered by the easy and cheap access to digital video. Thanks to digital cinema technology, film-makersfrom South East Asia have the opportunity to produce their alternative and often very personal works. Using Arjun Appadurai's influential essay ‘Disjuncture and Difference’ (1996) as a theoretical framework, I discuss some of the specific traits of recent independent films from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines, and point out their genuinely transnational nature with regard to distribution and reception.Less

Independent Versus Mainstream Islamic Cinema in Indonesia: Religion Using the Market or Vice Versa?

Tito Imanda

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

This essay discusses the correlation and struggle between the two motives in the recent wave of religious films from Indonesia: on the one hand, the propagation of religion to as wide an audience as ... More

This essay discusses the correlation and struggle between the two motives in the recent wave of religious films from Indonesia: on the one hand, the propagation of religion to as wide an audience as possible, and on the other hand the desire to make as much profit as possible. After the religious melodrama “Ayat-Ayat Cinta” broke ticket sales records for local movies in 2008, a number of other films followed in the same year, confirming the beginning of the new film trend.Less

The Downside of Digital: A German media critic plays devil's advocate

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by ... More

This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by directors and producers in consecutive issues, that are documented in extracts here.Less

“Digital is liberation theology”: Interview with Lav Diaz

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Lav Diaz

Fiction, Interrupted: Discontinuous Illusion and Regional Performance Traditions in Contemporary Thai Independent Film

Natalie Böhler

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Mingmongkol Sonakul’s “Isarn Special” (2002) as well as a number of other recent Thai independent films, such as those by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, refer to acting and narrating techniques familiar ... More

Mingmongkol Sonakul’s “Isarn Special” (2002) as well as a number of other recent Thai independent films, such as those by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, refer to acting and narrating techniques familiar from Thai drama traditions. The ensemble of the troupe is fundamental, as all elements of the play, namely narration, acting, music and chorus, are divided equally and non-hierarchically between the troupe members, assigning to each their specific functions that are, in equal measure, complementally significant in the formation of the artistic synthesis of the play. An equally important dramatic tradition is that of shared narrating. The essay points out how contemporary independent films from Thailand continue a “aesthetics of discontinuity” that goes back to traditional theatre.Less

Why Ciplak Ended Up Being Made

Khairil M. Bahar

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Malaysian director Khairil M. Bahar discusses the production of his low-budget independent film “Ciplak” (Plagiarize, 2006).

Singapore GaGa Tours Singapore

Tan Pin Pin

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Tan Pin Pin’ s 55-minute “Singapore Gaga” (2005), a tribute to the buskers, street vendors and assorted urban characters of the city state, was the first documentary from Singapore that got an ... More

Tan Pin Pin’ s 55-minute “Singapore Gaga” (2005), a tribute to the buskers, street vendors and assorted urban characters of the city state, was the first documentary from Singapore that got an theatrical release in the city state. In the essay the director describes how she managed to get the off-beat film shown on the big screen despite next to no marketing budget.Less

“I make films for myself”: Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul

“I want you to forget about the race of the protagonists half an hour into the film”: Interview with Yasmin Ahmad

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Yasmin Ahmad

Cinema, Sexuality and Censorship in Post-Soeharto Indonesia

Intan Paramaditha

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

The essay explores the connection between the ways in which the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers channelled their aspiration through Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI and the larger discourse of ... More

The essay explores the connection between the ways in which the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers channelled their aspiration through Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI and the larger discourse of post-Soeharto sexual politics. How do the new filmmakers see sexuality, and how does this perspective differ from that of the state? What is the significance of depicting sexuality in contemporary Indonesian cinema? The focus is on the debates around censorship between MFI and the Censorship Board in the Constitutional Court as well some films, particularly “Chants of Lotus” and “Women: In the Cut”, a documentary on how “Chants of Lotus” was afflicted by censorship.Less

Introduction

Anna Backman Rogers

in American Independent Cinema: Rites of Passage and the Crisis Image

American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the ... More

American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the definition of indie cinema as a hybrid industry (‘indiewood’). This study partakes of that conversation, but from the perspective of the aesthetics and poetics of crisis that figure or visualise notions of ambiguity and the in-between. The cinema of crisis delineated here is one that explores the difficulty or impossibility of progression through extended moments of liminality and threshold. In a cinema of crisis, the concept of a plot is subservient to the investigation of what it means to exist in a moment of threshold within the context of a rite of passage; this moment may usher in transformation, or it may lead to stasis and not offer any form of resolution. What the viewer sees on screen are bodies that may halt, falter, freeze and become-surface, or evolve, mutate, dissolve and merge: these are bodies in crisis because they are either atrophying or becoming-other.Less

“An Inexpensive film should start with an inexpensive story”: Interview with Brillante Mendoza and Armando Bing Lao

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Brillante Mendoza and Bing Lao

“I love making films, but not getting films made”: Interview with Pen-ek Ratanaruang

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Pen-ek Ratanaruang

“I want the people of indonesia to see a different point of view, whether they agree with it or not”: Interview with Nia Dinata

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Interview with Nia Dinata