TAYANGAN DAN DISKUSI FILEM

Acara pemutaran filem oleh tiga pengkarya, Fahmi Reza, Anna Salzberg & Nazim Esa berlangsung di Rumah YKP pada 20 Jun 2008.

Fahmi Reza dengan filem dokumentari “10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” (2007) berdurasi 35 minit menyentuh tentang jerit perih para pejuang kemerdekaan yang telah dilupakan. 5 orang tokoh ‘unsung heroes’ telah diwawancara untuk menceritakan kisah perjuangan kemerdekaan dari perspektif yang berbeza daripada buku-buku sejarah yang sedia ada.

Beliau menyediakan alternatif naratif kisah kumpulan-kumpulan berhaluan kiri (anti Inggeris) yang turut sama menyumbang kepada corak pemikiran rakyat dalam menuntut kemerdekaan Tanah Melayu dari cengkaman penjajah. Subjek sejarah menjadi lebih menarik dengan pendekatan Fahmi menyulam muzik punk dengan komposisi visual yang lebih segar dan kontemporari.

Anna Salzberg dari Peranchis tampil dengan “Malaisie (Uncomfortable)” (2007) berdurasi 28 minit yang diarah bersama Eleonore Merlin. Beliau yang berminat mengkaji agama, mula terpesona dengan agama Islam sewaktu pertembungan dengan sebuah komuniti Islam di Afrika. Subjek yang melatari filem ini merupakan dua orang wanita Melayu Islam, Aisyah dan Oubaidah yang menjalani kehidupan dalam konteks dan budaya berbeza. Aisyah merupakan wanita muda profesional yang tinggal di dalam kerlipan hiruk pikuk kota sementara Oubadiah merupakan tenaga utama Muslimah PAS di Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Kedua-duanya memberi perspektif peribadi tentang persoalan-persoalan yang melingkari hal-hal cabaran dalam persekitaran yang cenderung partriarki, seksualiti dan hubungan mereka dengan lelaki.

Nazim Esa yang baru memenangi anugerah BMW Shorties 2008 melalui filem pendeknya “For The Love of Drowning” (2008), 9 minit 52 saat, tidak dapat bersama khalayak untuk membicarakan karyanya pada malam itu. Filem yang lebih cenderung kepada ‘art film’ ini dibuat tanpa dialog dan sepenuhnya bersandar kepada kekuatan bahasa tubuh dan mimik wajah karakter. Ia menceritakan kemelut dan konflik pasangan lelaki dan wanita dalam sebuah perhubungan yang menuju kehancuran.

 

 

 

‘10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka’(10 Years Before Independence)

Directed by Fahmi Reza,

2007, 35 minutes

Synopsis

October 20th, 1947 was a historical day in the Malayan rakyat's constitutional struggle for independence from British colonialism. This short documentary chronicles the events that culminated in the Malaya-wide 'Hartal' day of protest against the undemocratic Federation of Malaya Constitutional Proposals devised by the British colonial regime, and the rise of the rakyat's democratic movement in Malaya, ten years before Merdeka.

20 Oktober 1947 merupakan hari bersejarah dalam perjuangan berperlembagaan rakyat Malaya menuntut kemerdekaan dari penjajah British. Filem dokumentari pendek ini menceritakan pengalaman yang dilalui oleh 5 individu yang turut serta dalam perjuangan politik nasionalis kiri untuk membentuk sebuah gerakan kemerdekaan rakyat di Malaya, sepuluh tahun sebelum Merdeka.

Director's Profile

Fahmi Reza is a self-taught graphic artist, designer and documentary filmmaker. He is committed to combining art, activism and politics to explore the role of art in movements for social change. In 2007, he directed the critically-acclaimed political documentary 10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka, which was awarded the Most Outstanding Human Rights Film at the 2007 Freedom Film Fest. He is currently working on a follow-up film entitled Revolusi '48 which is a documentary about the untold story of the forgotten Malayan Revolution of 1948.

Interview Subjects

Lim Kean Chye, 88 tahun, Malayan Democratic Union (MDU) Yahya Nassim, 88 tahun, Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) Hashim Said, 85 tahun, Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API) Zainuddin Andika, 84 tahun, Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API) Majid Salleh, 84 tahun, Johore State Federation of Trade Unions (JSFTU)

Trailer: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2106159/6632818
Blog filem: http://10tahun.blogspot.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/10tahun
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/10-Tahun-Sebelum-Merdeka/7983047426
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/10tahun
Film reviews: Tontonfilem, 23 Nov 2007 The Star, 15 Nov 2007 Kakiseni, 18 Sept 2007 Bolehland, 21 Sept 2007

 

‘Malaises’ /Uncomfortable

Directed by Eléonore Merlin & Anna Salzberg,

2007, 28 minutes

Synopsis

Aisyah and Oubaïdah, are two Malay women who are seemingly very different from each other, except for their common identity as women as as Muslim. Aisyah is a young emancipated person who enjoys the hectic lifestyle of Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. Oubaidah, has single handedly raised seven children. She is a delegate of PAS, the Islamic party and living in Kelantan (*then) the only state of Malaysia steered by this political formation.

Both women provide their insights on work, sexuality and their relationships with men. We see in their answers, contradictions that echo and reflect off each other, often raising the burning questions of the challenges, battles for identity and place in a Muslim society in the midst of transition.

Statement of intention

Many questions arise in today's world pertaining to Islam. Refugees constituting populations with their issues of identity, in turn political radicalization and in some cases, rigorous and puritanical evolution throughout the world. Malaysia, know for it's traditional, moderate Islam does not differ from this observation : with a 55 % population of Muslims. During the past thirty years, this country has witnessed a crystallization of the successive governments and its population around the Islamic religion. Islam is the official religion in Malaysia.

This global " Islamic revival " manifests itself in Malaysia by more "orthodox" practices than previously : wide-spread wearing of the veil, increase in the number of Islamic schools and universities, political or associative movements, referring to a " return towards a cleansed Islam ". The women are in the heart of it paradigm. Firstly, to be concerned by a return to a literally interpretation of the Koran, they are confronted at the same time with feminists trends that demand equality in the professional fields, way of life and consumption.

While Islam entrusts to them the conservation of family unit, the State calls upon them to participate in the race for the development of their country, realizing the dream of becoming an " Asian economic dragon "

Today, 60 to 70 % of the students in higher education are women. They occupy en Mass the labour market, and begin to earn more money than men. Reasons as to the model of sexual distribution of the tasks is hotly debated to the point of conflict, and with it, the definition of the role of both sexes.

How will the live of these Muslim women change in ten years?

The Muftis and Ulamas of Malaysia are men, majority of today’s students in religion are women. In the future, Muslim men will not be the only holders of the theological keys.

In France, Islam, and the Muslim woman, are too often caricatured. The Muslim woman, veiled, is necessarily oppressed, victim of an imperious male point of view. Islam is necessarily a warlike and archaic religion.What do the women themselves have to say about this subject, and how do they define themselves?

We went to meet these Malay Muslim women, we listened to them. And above all, we collected their contradictions and reflections of an ambivalent world where the Muslim woman identity tries to find its own outcome.

We chose to treat this subject through the portrayals of two women, Aisyah and Oubaïdah. We followed them in their daily life, at work, in their family, in the supermarket, in their debates and daily concerns, trying to find their place, identity and definition of themselves.

Aisyah, 24 years, is a young Muslim woman from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. A young and energetic English teacher, earns her living well while at the same time, trying to enjoying her youth while (not without contradictions) to combine her life with the Islamic principles she believes deeply.

Her mother passed on to her the classic values of what defines the "good Muslim": wear the veil; to work while assuring the good education of her children; to accept the man as inherently a leader. Aisyah is still trying to find herself. She has stopped wearing the veil for ages and speaks to us about her relations with men, about her sexuality, without censorship.

Oubaïdah, 43 years old, is a senator of the Islamic party (PAS) in the state of Kelantan, rural region in the North of the country. It is the only State (*at the time) which is governed by a political party wanting to be faithful in all aspects to the principles of the Koran. An active politician, independent woman, widow and mother of seven children, she actively militates in favour of a strict application of the recommendations of the prophet.

Through these two women, we discover the questions of Muslim women confronted with the economic development and with their potential emancipation. Aisyah wonders if she has to wear the veil but at the same time she defends in a kind of "schizophrenic" way, some of the traditional and patriarchal values.

Oubaïdah rebels at once against the customs drift and believes wholeheartedly in the emancipation of women as security of a successful Muslim model. These two women resist the motionless definitions of the Muslim woman living in an Islamic country, and thwart cliches.

As the movie progresses , the certainties of both of them decline, the doubts appear. In backcloth, the debates which shake a forum concerning the Muslim woman change during the 21st century. Organized right in the heart of the economic center of Kuala Lumpur in September 2007, it show an effervescence of the urban intelligentsia which wonders and is divided by the subject.

Biofilmographies/ directors’ background

Anna Salzberg met documentary cinema during a video workshop in the jail La Santé, in Paris, in 2001. She participated in the documentary film “Fragments d’une rencontre” produced there with prisoners and the director Anne Toussaint. She began there to realize her first short movies, like “Lignes de traverse”, in 2003. “Malaises/Uncomfortable”, is her first documentary movie, co-directed with Eleonore Merlin in 2007-2008, with which they won the Rotary price for young video reporters in 2007. Anna is a camerawoman for french TV channels. She was the chief operator of the documentary movie “Les étoiles du Grand Nord” directed by Charlotte Krebs, about an Inuit circus in the Arctic Canada, in 2006. Anna directed also sound documentary works for Arte Radio, like “Ouvriers de Well”, (nominated in the Longueur d’ondes festival in Brest, France, in 2007).

Eléonore Merlin is a journalist reporter working for some news channels in France. With Anna Salzberg, she won the Rotary price for young journalists, which permitted her to go and film her first documentary film

In Malaisia, she discovered the muslim women's questionnings about their place in changing societies, and she produced with Anna Salzberg the film "Uncomfortable".

 

‘FOR THE LOVE OF DROWNING”

Directed by NAZIM ESA

2008, 9 min. 52 sec.

Synopsis:

A short film about the complexity of communication

Director’s Profile:

Nazim Esa is an artist and filmaker

Cast/Crew:

TALENT MAN: James Lim

WOMAN: Juliana Yasin (Singapore)

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Wong Hoy Cheong

ART DIRECTOR: Simon Loke

MAKE UP AND WARDROBE: Shahnaz Baharuden

AUDIO & LINE PRODUCER: Andy Alias

The other magnificent people involved in this project are:

EXTRAS: J. Balamurugan & M. Sethu

VIOLIN/SCORE: Michelle Lai

LIGHTING/GAFFER: Harry Frederick Dinglim

BEST BOY: Naufal Hadi

PRODUCTION CREW: Bob & Along