My 2 Friends

My dear Friends: Charlotte & Margaret,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! So proud of you guys ^^

So sorry I couldn't attend the screening. I had to prep for a shoot the following day. When I read Charlotte's text message "Malaysia shorts screening Monday at Help. Are you going?", it got me thinking...

Firstly Charlotte hardly smses me about M'sian shorts. Margaret does that most of the time (but that's past tense now). There must be something special screening that particular night. But I could only reply "No. I have a shoot the following day."

Well now I know for sure even though Charlotte didn't say anything after that.

MALAYSIAN SHORTS
Monday 17 November 2008, 8.00pm
HELP University College Theatrette

Presenter: Hassan Muthalib

1. 916 (dir David Ngui; 13’16”, 2008)
After years of hiding in the jungle, Gui decides to defect from the guerilla group and be reunited with his family.

2. G16 G17 (dir Saw Tiong Guan; 18 min, 2008)
Kid, a 16-year-old boy returns home after knowing that this mother is terminally-ill. Hoping to make his mother happy, Kid struggles to arrange a special screening at an old abandoned cinema which his mother used to frequent when she was young. A particular film is tracked down with the help of the alcoholic cinema owner for the screening. Festivals 2008: Kolkota, Decada Cinemanila, Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife.

3. Adults Only (dir Yeo Joon Han; 2006, 10 min)
As several old men and women perform their daily, practical tasks and three children silently suffer their weekly piano lessons, a metaphor is spun, exposing the vicious cycle of pragmatic living that constantly plagues people. Best Short Film, Stockholm Festival 2006; Special Mention, Venice Film Festival 2006

4. Eyefinger (dir Margaret Bong; 10’ 53”, 2008)
A silent film about a mute young couple nursing their pain at the loss of their son.
Busan Asian Short Film Festival, 2008.

5. Escape (dir Charlotte Lim; 2008, 26 min)
Nine-year-old Jiang Xiao lives with his grandfather on a rubber estate. His elder sister promises to take him to the zoo to see the tiger cubs. But the next morning when he wakes up, she has already left for the city. “…lovely vignettes of life in a rubber plantation village… Precise, elegant and lively: a village comes to life in just 26 minutes".
Festivals: Pusan, Vancouver.

6. The Need of Rites (dir Tan Chui Mui; 2008, 12’ 25”)
Sook Chen meets a fortune teller on the street. The whole conversation soon becomes unbearable. (Funded by Dana Filem Pendek, FINAS.)

7. Eaten by Time (Anonymous; 3’, 2008)
The title is an almost direct translation of the Malay phrase "dimamah usia".