Moonwater to challenge stereotypes of Chinese cinema
Paul F. Agusta, Contributor, Jakarta, pfa0109@yahoo.com
No strangers to breaking new ground, the folk at Q-munity, the not-for-profit arts management organization that brought Jakarta its first annual gay and lesbian film festival, is presenting its first-ever mass screening in Indonesia aimed at providing an in- depth alternative look at Chinese culture through films produced worldwide.
"We want to challenge the stereotypical view of most Indonesians that Chinese cinema means Kung-Fu action or Hong Kong good cop, bad cop movies," Moonwater Film Festival director Helly Minarti said.
"We hope to motivate people to reconsider the meaning of being Chinese as a matter of cultural identity," she added.
The festival will be held at a number of venues in Jakarta -- Teater Utan Kayu, Galeri Oktagon and Aksara Bookstore, Kemang -- over two weekends, June 17,18 and 19, and then June 24, 25, and 26.
All screenings will be free of charge.
The Moonwater Film Festival will delve into many facets of Chinese culture that are not readily known or understood by the international or Indonesian community with the showing of 11 feature films plus one documentary and four short films produced not only in mainland China and Hong Kong, but also in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States.
The festival also includes a discussion themed "Mapping Chinese Cinema" with Erik Gunawan, a lecturer at the Jakarta Arts Institute, which will be held at Teater Utan Kayu at 4 p.m. on the final day of the festival.
Q-munity has succeeded in bringing in films that cover the immense spectrum of Chinese culture against the backdrop of various countries and periods, ranging from the exploration of ancient legends to a modern young bachelor's encounter with a washing machine.
Highlights of the festival include a retrospective of the early works of near-legendary director Wong Kar-Wai. These are Kar-Wai's first feature, As Tears Go By (Hong Kong, 1988), starring Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung in a unique take on the dark world of the Hong Kong Triad.
Also being screened are Days of Being Wild (Hong Kong, 1991), starring Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung in the story of a complicated love triangle and Ashes of Time, (Hong Kong/Mainland China/Taiwan, 1994), his one-and-only classic wushu film, which serves as a prequel to the well-known Condor Heroes trilogy.
On the agenda, too, is director Stanley Kwan's Full Moon In New York (Hong Kong/USA, 1989), a film that tells of the friendship of three very different Chinese women, and how they deal with the alienation of being foreigners in an American metropolis. This film won Maggie Cheung a "best actress" award at the 1989 Golden Horse Film Festival.
Three films by Singaporean director Yon Fan are also featured, including Bugis Street (Singapore, 1995), which is about a 17- year-old girl's rude awakening to the harsh realities of life when she is sent to work near Bugis street and ends up living among transvestites and transsexuals, who make their living on the streets.
Other films included in the festival, which explore what it means to be Chinese outside of mainland China in this contemporary world, are The Beautiful Washing Machine (Malaysia, 2004) by James Lee; Sanctuary (Malaysia, 2004) by Ho Yuhang, and Beijing or Bust (mainland China, 2005) by Hao Wu, a documentary that explores the voyages of six American-born Chinese on their first visit to the land of their ancestors.
With this wide range of genres, topics and source countries, Q-muntiy expects that the Moonwater Film Festival will be able to showcase a new view of Chinese culture within a larger global context that will shatter stereotypes and provoke thought.
For a complete schedule and more information on the films to be presented, please visit the Moonwater Film Festival's official website at: http://moonwaterfilmfest.blogdrive.com