Ongoing French Film Festival At Gurney Plaza

This week, there'll be a screening of eight French films at Gurney Plaza GSC. We aren't affiliated with the organizers, but I'm sure folks will be interested.

The movies are:

- Breathless (A Bout De Souffle)
- If You Love Me Follow Me (Qui M’aime Me Suive)
- I’m Not Here To Be Loved (Je Ne Suis Pas La Pour Etre Aime)
- Love is In The Air (Ma Vie En L’Air)
- Paris, Je T’Aime
- Read My Lips (Sur Mes Levres)
- The Story Of My Life (Mensonges Et Trahisons)
- Tell No One (Ne L Dis A Personne)

Info for the films can be found here.

And showtimes here.

New Screening (May 18) : Taxi To The Dark Side

We have moved to a new place: 62 Weld Quay. It is just one door away from our previous premises. Its the building with the lottery shop on the ground floor. Our screening theatre is on the 3rd floor of the building. This place is nicer than the previous one...




Part of the Why Democracy? series, this weekend's movie by Alex Gibney tells the true story of Dilawar, a taxi driver who died from torture in the custody of the US Military in Afghanistan. Mr. Dilawar had been driving his passengers past a US army base that had been attacked earlier, and was stopped at a checkpoint by pro-Alliance Afghan militia. The militiamen had framed Dilawar and his passengers, and turned them over to the US military for interrogation.

This Academy Award winning documentary also examines the United States and its intelligence organizations' policies & research on torture for information extraction, and the views from opponents and supporters of torture practices.


Runtime: ~105 minutes

More info here (Needs Flash)

* * * * * *

The screening time has been moved to 8PM due to requests from many members. Aside from being more convenient, it would be dark by then and we wouldn't have the setting sun interfering with the projection.


Place: 62 Weld Quay, 3rd Floor

Time: 8 PM

Admission: FREE

New Movie, May 4th: Half-Moon (Niwe Mang)

Iranian-Kurdish film director Bahman Ghobadi ("Turtles Can Fly", "A Time For Drunken Horses") takes us on a road-trip from Iran to post-Saddam Iraq on a minibus. And just like the previous two movies we screened, "Goodbye Boys" and "Ten Canoes", the director uses non-professional actors and actresses to play the characters in his film.

Besides the driver, the passengers are an old Kurdish musician called Mamo, and his "children" -- actually his ex-students. The famous Mamo wishes to travel with his band to Kurdish-Iraq for a concert, his first in Iraq in 30-plus years. Saddam Hussein had repressed Kurdish culture in Iraq during his rule. The situation is better in Iran, but by not much... women are prohibited from performing.


The trip to Iraq would be risky, and a village elder predicts that serious danger would befall the old musician. Still he presses on with his dream to play in Kurdish Iraq.

Along the way he searches for his singing partner, a woman named Hesho, to join his group. Old Mamo also faces obstacles from the overzealous Iranian police, ever on the lookout for religious transgressions... such as female singers.



More info here

Location: 4th floor, 60 Weld Quay

Time: 7PM (Sunday), 4th May

Admission: Free

April20: Bernard Chauly's "Goodbye Boys" (2006)

The year 1990. Ipoh. A former mining town now surrounded by a moonscape of abandoned mining machinery & quarries. Eight Boy Scouts (Kinta Troop No.2) from St. Michael's High School embark on a camping expedition to earn their Scout badges. For the trip to be successful, they must cover 100 kilometers of ground around Ipoh on foot. No "help" from any other transport (pedal-powered, animal-powered, or motorized) is allowed. Some aim to complete the expedition fairly, some plan to cheat...

Bernard Chauly's low-budget film takes us through the minds & antics of the eight as they trek through Perak's Kinta Valley; their friendships, the childish pranks they play upon each other, pimples, family relationships, the upcoming school prom, the impending final exams, ... and their future after graduation...


At the end of the expedition, which nearly turned tragic, the eight schoolboys have changed... each of them now with an entirely new outlook on life, and new post-highschool ambitions...

The movie is in a mixture of Malay, mostly English, and some Chinese. But subtitles are provided. From what I've read, most of the actors are first-timers.


http://www.redfilms.com.my/goodbyeboys.htm


Location: 4th floor, 60 Weld Quay

Time: 7PM (Sunday), 20 April

Admission: Free

We Will Be Moving Soon

"Ten Canoes" was screened to an audience of 10 people yesterday night. Although the Australian-Aboriginal dialogue in the film wasn't subtitled, the voiceover of the narrator and the visuals provided the clues for the audience to figure out what the characters were talking about.

The movie also provided us a glimpse into ancient Aboriginal practices (laws, culture, music, hunting activities, etc.) and storytelling. One wonders if a similar film could be made featuring one or some of the many indigenous Orang Asli tribes of Malaysia...?


As our lease on our current premises at 60 Weld Quay is expiring, the Penang Film Club will have to move. We have a new place in mind, very close to where we are now. We'll let you know soon... once all the paperwork has been finalized.

But our next film, "Goodbye Boys", will still be screened at 60 Weld Quay. It will most likely be our last film to be shown at this place, however.

6 April: "Ten Canoes"

This Sunday, we will be screening an Australian-Aborigine movie. Filmed in Northern Australia, "Ten Canoes" is set in a time long before the arrival of Europeans on the continent.


A story within a story, the elder aboriginal Minygululu tells a fable to Dayindi, one of the members of Minygululu's hunting expedition. Dayindi is young, but inexperienced, and he desires one of Minygululu's wives for his own. The whole movie is both in English narration and Aboriginal language.


Homepage

Location: 4th floor, 60 Weld Quay

Time: 7PM, Sunday, 6 April

Admission: Free

Kite Runner an attraction with film club members

We screened Kite Runner on Mar 9th. The screening attracted 15 audience -after screening was suspended due to the Malaysian General Elections during the last screening date. My report after the screening :

The Kite Runner screening tonite (Mar 9th) attracted 15 audience -which is 1
month after the last screening. The last screening-supposedly 2 week ago,
was skipped due to commitment in the Malaysian General Elections by most
members of the Film Club.

Kite Runner is a recent make -telling the story of a political emigrant
from Afghanistan now settled in California. The main character left
Afghanistan with his father after the Russian invasion. He was persuaded to
return to Afghanistan by a discovery that he has a young close family member
left behind in Afghanistan-and he wanted to bring the relative to
California. The film exposed the atrocities of Taliban who were in power
then eg stoning to death of adulterous citizens. After some encounter with
the Talibans he managed to bring the young relative back.

The story explore the psychology of the millions of political emigrants all
over the world eg are they putting saving themselves above saving their
previous country? An encounter with an orphanage manager brought home the
point.

The film managed to catch public imagination because it is set in the
background of policy debates on US/Western policy around Afghanistan. While
promoting human rights seems defensible if not laudable the sacrificing of
thousands of human life by a policy based on human rights and
anti-terrorism, seems to be self-contradictory. A more discerning,
sensitive policy seems overdue-even as of now.

The making of film apparently had to skirt around numerous sensitivities eg
the film was shot in Sinkiang of China, and numerous participants of the
film have to live out of the country. It is a film of our time -if we
consider that anti-terrorism policy of the US had `terrorised' numerous
humanistic concerns both in and out of US. The `export' of the violence to
Pakistan seems to indicate that the `war on terror' had help spread more
violence and counter violence, up to this day!

GIven the theme that this film delve in it is surprising that the film uses
a treatment which is more literary, symbolic and poetic than the usual
action pack Hollywood treatment. At times the film even seems to be drifting
aimlessly-but the ending definitely managed to bring the poignanacy of the
film's subject into focus. The kite competition (where kite players compete
to cut other kites in the sky so as to remain the only one left)was used in
the film to symbolise the rule of the strong played out in the Afghanistan
society. The kite runner refer to the one who run after a kite which has
been cut off by a rival).

It was a highly watchable and engaging film.

Review by Ong BK
(The review attracted some responses from various members at the e-group-join in the e-group to read more).