Filmmakers highlight short films

Hera Diani , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While Japanese and Korean cinema have been enjoying growing popularity all over the world, Southeast Asian films remain bit players in the big picture of Asian cinema.

Even among neighboring countries, the exposure is still small, although the production of the countries is no less interesting.

In this year's Jakarta International Film Festival (Jiffest), for instance, the audience got to see the touching and funny Singaporean I Not Stupid, or the intriguing Last Life in The Universe from Thailand.

The situation has prompted filmmakers and film activists from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to establish a venue to appreciate the talents of the three neighboring countries and to create and strengthen a networking among the countries.

"Southeast Asia is close in terms of each other, we are next to each other but never see each other's films," said Thai film activist Chalida Uabumrungjit during a seminar on distribution and exhibition of short films in Southeast Asia here.

She met with Singaporean director Yuni Hadi and Malaysian director Amir Muhammad at the Kuching Film Festival in 2001, and they decided to establish S-Express.

"Each of us curates the films from our respective countries, exchanging them and screening them. We also come to each other's countries to do screenings and discussion," Chalida said.

"We give mental support for filmmakers, and strengthen their network."

This year, Indonesia joined the network through short film organization Minikino, founded by short filmmaker Tintin Wulia.

S-Express focuses on short films, a cinematic genre which does not get much attention, unlike in developed countries where filmmakers and festivals are abundant.

In most Southeast Asian countries, with Hollywood blockbusters having a stranglehold at movie theaters and little local film production, short films actually have a greater artistic voice than features.

Zhang Wenjie from S-Express Singapore said only four to five feature films were produced compared to 100 plus short films per year in Singapore.

"As feature films are very few, short films give more insight into the feeling and soul of each country. They are also free from commercial constraints, being indie," said Wenjie, who works at Substation, the first independent arts center in Singapore.

Even so, he said, it was still difficult to spot the trend of Singaporean short films, let alone to discern an identity.

"Young filmmakers later have to give up their filmmaking interest as society demands they earn money, support their family etc. So, the film scene is, like, start and stop, start and stop. There is no continuity. Every one to two years we will start over again. We're still trying to find what our voice is."

Here in Indonesia, short film production is huge in number but there is barely any venue to distribution and exhibition of them.

Tintin said that there were thousands of short films produced in Indonesia since the early 1990s, with the booming of digital technology and MTV.

"It's such a huge number but people don't get to see them. We don't even know where all of those films are," she said.

Minikino, she said, have been trying to collect Indonesian short films since it was established in 2002, but turned out it was more difficult than obtaining foreign short films.

"But even when I meet the directors, they still hesitate to give their works -- they have no trust in us."

In terms of quality, Chalida said filmmakers were now more technically savvy.

"The content is quite diverse, but since there has only been Hollywood and Chinese films, short films still tend to be like those. Everybody, like, wants to be Wong Karwai. But there are also filmmakers who want to do something else, an experimental semi documentary," she said of Thailand's short film scene.

Chalida said that Indonesian films were more political in content compared to those in her homeland.

"Most Thai films are about personal cute stuff."

Wenjie praised Indonesian shorts for a sense of playfulness and adventure, qualities lacking in Singaporean films.

Another encouraging development is that there are filmmakers who want to be known as short filmmakers, instead of perceiving it as a stepping stone to making features.

"We want to encourage people to do it. The independent film scene has improved. At the Rotterdam Film Festival next year, there will be a new segment called Southeast Asian Eyes. That is a good opportunity for filmmakers," Chalida said.

In order to improve the distribution and exhibition of Southeast Asian short films, Chalida said filmmakers should have good marketing skills for their own works.

"We always encourage filmmakers to give good packaging of their films. It works OK. People started to buy, and they got interested. The money is not much, but at least people get to see it," she said.

Wenjie, meanwhile, said the perception of short films as amateurish and too arty should be changed.

"I think established filmmakers should start to make more short films. It's not a strange idea. This will improve the perception of short films."

In the future, S-Express intends to expand to offer a film market, where buyers can make their selections, among its programs.

But that may still be a long way off, as most people just want to watch the films for free.

"Right now S-Express is still a very loose concept. But what's important is there's still so much to know about each country. We don't even know each other. It's just a beginning," Wenjie said.