ASEAN film week to be held in Vietnam
ASEAN film week to be held in Vietnam
HANOI (Agencies): An ASEAN film week will be held in Hanoi the last week of November as the country prepares to host the ASEAN summit the following month, local press reports said Thursday.
Each of the nine ASEAN member countries will send one film. The film week is funded by the Vietnam-ASEAN Culture and Information Cooperation Committee, the Investment newspaper said.
The annual ASEAN art show also will be shown in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City next month, but has run into controversy, with Indonesia trying to block the inclusion of a Singapore painting.
The work by Chiang Jing Ying, titled Victims of May, is about the riots in Indonesia last spring and reportedly is graphic in its depiction of the violence.
Indonesian officials in Hanoi have written to the Ministry of Culture asking that it be barred from the show, saying it "runs counter to the spirit of ASEAN."
The show, which is an annual event, has been sponsored by Philip Morris for five years as part of its general arts- sponsorship activities worldwide.
Five paintings will represent Indonesia in the ASEAN art show.
The pieces, winners of Indonesia Art Awards V 1998, are on display at the National Gallery in Jakarta until Friday.
Nominated are works of Isa Perkasa, Handiwirman Saputra, Rudi ST. Darma, Irman A. Rahman and Ugo Untoro, which were chosen from 1,075 paintings entered in the competition.
Sunaryo, a jury member for Indonesian Art Award V, conceded there had been a general decline in both quality and quantity of works entered in the competition.
"Many of the painters took the political and social turmoil as the theme of their painting. It seems, however, the subject has not settled within them," Sunaryo told reporters recently.
He added that this year's regulation to allow only one painting per entrant may have caused the decline in the number of entries.
Organized by The Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation, the theme of this year's competition is contemporary life and dilemma in Southeast Asia.
In Manila last year, Yuswantoro Adi became Indonesia's first painter to win the ASEAN Art Award. He received a cash price of US$10,000 and a grand prize trophy. (46)