Friday, January 18, 2008

JANUARY 2008: Who's Gonna Love This Work?


It's the latter part of January, and as the days inch forward to the Lunar New Year, I should be thinking of final arrangements for attending one of the two big European marketplace festivals slated for the coming fortnight. Indeed, I've trekked eastward to the European Film Market at Berlinale religiously since 2001, in part to discover new films to include into our festival line-up, and also to network with filmmakers and industry professionals who regard Europe as a valuable proving ground for their productions and artistic visions. So what, do I ask myself, am I doing in snowy Park City, Utah at the Sundance Film Festival? I'm not sure it's the films: indeed, I've not bothered to screen such critically-acclaimed and provocative fare of recent vintage as TEETH, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and whatever other film has broken out due to Sundance. More to the point, my presence here has more to do with the Asian Pacific Filmmakers' Experience Reception that Visual Communications and other organizations have presented here since 2002 (and which I've blogged about extensively on the Visual Communications website -- look for the whole 4-1-1 there).

The switching of my programming research calendar to a warm-weather itinerary (basically, a six-week long trek dominated by my attendance at the Pusan International Film Festival and Asian Film Market) insures that I come into contact with a critical mass of Asian Pacific international films, not to mention the rare opportunity to observe the ever-shifting directions of world cinema through the films and filmmakers I encounter. For instance, it was quite breathtaking to experience the debut feature films of past VC FILMFEST artists Aditya Assarat and Liew Seng Tat at Pusan this year -- Aditya's mesmerizing WONDERFUL TOWN and Seng Tat's rambumctious yet precious FLOWER IN THE POCKET have won numerous awards on the international film festival circuit to date, and as I write this, the two films are poised for their European premieres at the Rotterdam International Film Festival at the end of this month. It was also beneficial to know that the digital cinema revolution has fully taken hold in Southeast Asia; that region has in recent years played host to new and exciting filmmakers from Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. The Philippines, in particular, has asserted itself as a new hotbed of vanguard filmmaking talent through the efforts of film festivals including Cinemanila and Cinemalaya to expose this new generation, as well as the emergence of new voices as Khavn de la Cruz, Lav Diaz, Ruelo Lozendo, Raya Martin, Auraeus Solito, John Torres, and many others. These artists and many others like them have not only been nurtured and developed in their home countries and regions, but have found a foothold and even critical and popular acclaim in the West.

In a sense, the exciting developments of new Asian Pacific cinema only serves to bring into sharp relief the relative homogenous personality of the Asian selections here at Sundance 2008; the heavily China and Japan-centric line-up of international work vis-a-vis the concommitant lack of diverse APA offerings. For instance, a publicist friend of mine bemoaned the exclusion of works this year from South Korea, while glimpses of the new and exciting Southeast Asian cinema are nowhere to be found throughout the program line-up. If it wasn't for the otherwise fulfilling task of organizing the APA Reception, I myself would be asking what I'm doing here. Uh, on second thought, I've been asking myself that ever since the full Sundance line-up became public. I have to think that perhaps Sundance has missed the boat this year -- that in an effort to give a nod to the fact that this is after all an Olympic year, a measure of recognition is being paid through the Asian programming. If so, that would be a shame. The Sundance audience would be better and much more enlightened by exposure to what's going on throughout Asia right now. But then, I am not a Sundance programmer. And this is not the audience I program for and answer to...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...or the embarrasingly paltry Asian selection at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. The U.S.'s two main indie festivals completely struck out this year, as they have so many years past. If they weren't so busy facilitating the big-name acquisitions, they'd realize how behind they are on matters like the state of the art. Until they get their act together, it's up to festivals like VC to connect us with what's going on elsewhere in the world.