Criticine. 5.

The centerpiece of the new issue of Criticine is a survey conducted by editor Alexis A Tioseco: "The question was simple, the answers varied, the intentions - which need not be stated explicitly - plural. Criticine asks a number of film critics, teachers and those working in the field of cinema the same basic questions: Why and for whom do you write today? Why and for whom do you work today?" And: "Why and for whom do you film today?"

"However adeptly or flimsily developed, twenty students from across Asia and Europe descended to Tokyo for a week to try out a 'mock-pitch' of their film treatments to eleven resource persons in the hopes of nailing the ideal angle or approach that will impress potential funders (and distributors) down the road." A report from Vinita Ramani.

December 7, 2006: "I received a request from Pierre Rissient to meet with him when he passes through Singapore. He's read my book, and wants to have a chat." Little wonder. Kinda Hot: The Making of Saint Jack in Singapore tells a great story - and tells it well. Here, in diary form, Ben Slater tells another story - the making of the book.

"In 2006 Tan Chui Mui followed Raya Martin as the second Southeast Asian filmmaker selected for the prestigious Cannes Cinefondation residence in Paris. Criticine asked her to send a few notes while she was in France, and she obliged. Chui Mui's notes are playful, sometimes innocent, but at particular moments, startlingly intimate as well. Just like her films."

Interviews:

• Eric Sasono with cinematographer and experimental filmmaker Faozan Rizal.

• Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn with with experimental Thai filmmaker Sasithorn Ariyavicha.

• Alexis A Tioseco with Edwin, "[h]ailed by many as one of the finest short filmmakers in the region."

Vinita Ramani on Village People Radio Show: Amir Muhammad's "latest film is in many ways, a follow-up to his self-described 'semi-musical documentary,' The Last Communist. Whereas the latter was an almost whimsical and satirical romp through Malaysia while ostensibly tracing the life trajectory of the Communist Party of Malaya's only living leader, Chin Peng, this new film is - in the filmmaker's own words - much more site-specific."

"Apichatpong [Weerasethakul] once told me that the magic of memories is in the fact that he could inherit them from his parents, like a family heirloom," writes Kong Rithdee. "You can have the memories even though you didn't experience them, he says, and the elusive nature of what is inherited and what is actually remembered constitutes the enigma of Syndromes and a Century, a film in which time is fragmented and memories compartmentalised, in which the scientific and the spiritual dance a surreal pas de deux that juxtaposes the present and the future - or the past and the present."

Posted by dwhudson at December 2, 2008 9:20 AM