Perspectives Film Festival 2011

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BREAKTHROUGHS
IN CINEMA

Breakthroughs in cinema often come in the form of controversy – unorthodox techniques,
original manifestoes, or radical content. Yet, with censorship regulations and politically-

society often get blocked from the big screen, stuck in all the red tape.

This year, Perspectives Film Festival makes a breakthrough by presenting our audiences with a

opportunity to transform mindsets. We hope to encourage audiences to examine issues that
some societies refuse or are unable to face.
“...FILMS THAT
they were released, they are now understood to be critical
PROVIDE A
works that have altered the political, social and cultural CONTROVERSIAL
fabrics of the communities that once rejected their existence. OR EXCESSIVELY
INCISIVE VIEW OF
Perspectives Film Festival 2011 is proud to present these SOCIETY OFTEN
GET BLOCKED
enthusiast should look forward to seeing. FROM THE BIG
SCREEN...”

BREAKTHROUGHS IN CINEMA 1

FOREWORD

The Blue Kite | © Fortissimo Films

Aarakshan courted intense controversy in
India for its treatment of sensitive issues related to the caste system, prompting the

The Kiss infamously showed
a couple locking lips on screen, scandalising conservative viewers at the time. As the

fascinating)﴿ part of the medium.

We must admit that we are innately curious about controversies, though we would think
twice about creating a storm in a teacup. Yet we feel this strange and primal attraction
towards someone who does something out of the ordinary, something that poses a
threat to the establishment and its rigid social and moral codes. The more controversial

and tension pleasing, but because we feel the need to take sides and defend what we
truly believe in.

2 PERSPECTIVES FILM FESTIVAL

Controversies unite as well as divide us. Similarly, controversial “THE MORE
CONTROVERSIAL
SOMETHING IS, THE
to gain appreciation and respect for their truthful portrayal of MORE REACTIVE
the social, cultural, and political circumstances of the time. AND RILED UP WE
That cinema breaks through strongly-held taboos and sheds BECOME, NOT
light on issues societies and authorities have refused to BECAUSE WE
face – this is what led to the thematic conceptualisation of FIND CONFLICT
Perspectives Film Festival 2011. AND TENSION
PLEASING, BUT
In our fourth year, Perspectives 2011 seeks to explore a series BECAUSE WE FEEL
THE NEED TO TAKE
or proved to be highly controversial in their country of SIDES AND DEFEND
origin, but have over time made a strong, transformative WHAT WE TRULY
impact not only on the very people who condemned them, BELIEVE IN.”
but also on an increasingly open-minded and inquisitive
audience, giving us socio-cultural insights into the complex world we all live in. We will

Koji Wakamatsu’s Caterpillar, which won Shinobu Terajima the Best Actress at the Berlin
International Film Festival in 2010, and Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange
which has been banned here for more than three decades and will be featured for the
th
anniversary.

Organised and managed by a wonderful team of talented undergraduates from the

Kim Wee Legacy Fund. On behalf of the team, I would like to take this opportunity to

who has in one way or another contributed to the positive realisation of our festival.

medium to tackle controversial issues in ways that provoke deliberation and debate. We

it an especially meaningful experience.

ETERNALITY TAN
Festival Director
Perspectives Film Festival 2011


brief
history
Every year, Perspectives Film Festival seeks to bring to our audiences a different
perspective on breakthroughs in cinema.

What do we mean
cinema’s narrative capabilities, crea
ting compelling stories out of mov
fabricating convincing characters ing images,
that audiences loved and hated. Som
reality, charging the camera with the e documented
task of recording life. Others man
and space, excited by the unprece ipulated time
dented plasticity of the medium.

With the

and that challenge the status quo in form and content.

In 2008, Perspectives Film Festival’s inaugural year,
we explored the Golden Age of Singapore cinema –
a milestone era when local cinema blossomed as a
homegrown industry and made a name for itself in
the region. Beautifully named The Film Lovers’ Guide
to Living Well, the festival opened with Yi Sui’s Lion
City
Seniman
Bujang Lapok
our audiences a glimpse of the glory days of early
Singaporean cinema.

Perspectives Film Festival is run annually by
students taking the Film Festival Practicum course, offered
by the
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
With help from
instructors and professional collaborators, we learn the
ropes of organising and

and writing for collateral, securing locations and public
ising the festival.


Monster Mania, the second installment to Perspectives

a genre that drew both young and old, and one that
people loved and kept coming back to. With a free
outdoor screening of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah to
open the festival, we presented audiences with a
Nosferatu,

the collaboration with three musical groups in
Singapore to produce an original and contemporary

explored and experimented with in cinema. That was
also our focus for Perspectives 2010. For our third
attempt at exploring breakthroughs in cinema, we

between what is real and what is made-up. The

documentary Waltz with Bashir
feature animated documentary in cinematic history,
and Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark
only feature shot in an uninterrupted 96-minute

carving for themselves a new space between the
longstanding genres of documentary and drama.

As the iences an enjoyable
we seek each year to offer our aud
and enriching festival that is known for curating
e you enjoy Perspectives
groundbreaking cinema. We hop
the years to come!
2011, and come back for more in


THE BATTLE OF
ALGIERS Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo
1966 | Italy, Algeria | 121 min | PG | 2K Digital
In Italian, French and Arabic with English subtitles

The Battle of Algiers | © Casbah Entertainment Inc.

SCHEDULING INFORMATION
GV VIVOCITY
THU 27 OCT | 9PM


The Battle of Algiers was created based on events during the Algerian AWARDS
Algerian insurgents plant bombs, demonstrate in the streets, and plan Venice Film
Festival
Won Golden
out and dismantling the terrorists’ operation system. Filmed in a raw Lion and
documentary style and released not long after the revolt, The Battle FIPRESCI prize
of Algiers was so realistic that audiences thought it was actual war
Oscars
Nominated for
Best Director,
the former colonists’ and soldiers’ resentment against its sympathetic Original
treatment of Algerian insurgents. An important commentary on Screenplay,
and Best
to illustrate the problems the US faced in the Iraq War. With the 50th Foreign
Language Film

2K Digital format.

The Battle of Algiers | © Casbah Entertainment Inc.

RECONSTRUCTING HISTORY
By Prof. Heitor Capuzzo, School of Art, Design and Media, NTU
The Battle of Algiers our perception to go beyond the mere
experience. The director Gillo Pontecorvo understanding of historical incident. It
presents a vigorous display about the instead allows for a powerful and dialectic
process of independence for Algerians immersion into the revolutionary process.
from the occupying French in the 1950s.

about urban guerrilla strategy in modern
societies. Because of that The Battle of Algiers
While the French soldiers used methods of was forbidden in many countries with the
torture, the Algerians on the other hand, mislabelled status of “terrorist propaganda”.
planted bombs in public spaces escalating
the violence to the level of a civil war.
rethink many recent international incidents
Pontecorvo used the documentary style where violence became the answer against
in reconstructing facts with a strong the advance of neo-colonialism. In this
impression of reality. Algerians are here the sense, The Battle of Algiers
main characters of their own history. The the past to alert us, in the present time,
narrative works as a time machine allowing about our urgent need to face the future.

A CLOCKWORK
ORANGE Dir. Stanley Kubrick

In English and Nadsat, a slang invented for the novel

A Clockwork Orange | © Warner Bros.

GV VIVOCITY
FRI 28 OCT | 8:45PM


Set in a dystopian future in Britain, this bold and satirical crime-drama AWARDS
focuses on Alex, a young, domineering delinquent whose penchant for
violence and sex leads him to be set up by his resentful gang. In prison, New York
Film Critics
Alex volunteers to undergo an experimental psychological treatment
Circle Awards
developed by the government as a cure for all criminal problems. Alex Won Best Film
is conditioned to feel nausea in relation to violence and sex, and returns and Director
to society soon after – but is he really cured? Based on the 1962 novel
Oscars
by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange shocked audiences with its
Nominated for
Best Picture,
in the United Kingdom, with accusations that it inspired copycat Director,
crimes involving gang rape, manslaughter and adolescent violence. Adapted
Hostility to A Clockwork Orange mounted, prompting Kubrick to ban Screenplay,
its distribution in the UK, effectively preventing any further screenings and
until after his death in 1999. This Kubrick masterpiece has never been Film Editing
screened commercially in Singapore. Perspectives is proud to present BAFTAs
th Nominated for
Best Film, Art
Direction,
Cinematography,
Screenplay,
Editing,
Soundtrack

A Clockwork Orange | © Warner Bros.

A WORD FROM JAN HARLAN
Jan Harlan was an assistant to the producer in A Clockwork Orange, and has worked closely with Stanley Kubrick in
Eyes Wide Shut. He is Kubrick’s brother-in-law and directed a documentary about him,
titled Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.

Great artists, who are critical of their
societies, are one of the achievements Later, the press also entered the foray as
of a free and democratic society. Stanley a form of revenge against Kubrick, who
Kubrick was one of them. He was a great disliked journalists. The whole hype turned
A Clockwork into an uncomfortable attack on Kubrick
Orange, is still considered a worldwide who received many threatening letters.
success, for it stands out within its genre This led Kubrick to ask Warner Bros. to
as a work of art.

However, it has to be said that the intense

Kubrick, neither understanding nor seeing one cannot deny that A Clockwork Orange

felt that the rape scenes were excessive th
anniversary, it is unfortunate
but Kubrick always felt that a rape on
screen should be shown as the vicious and relevant, now more than ever.
disgusting crime is. This in fact heightened

SYNDROMES
AND A
CENTURY Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

In Thai with English subtitles

Syndromes and a Century | © Fortissimo Films

THE ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
SAT 29 OCT | 1:30PM


In Syndromes and a Century AWARDS
Weerasethakul explores the complex web of human relationships
and the elliptical nature of memory, starting with the love life of a Venice Film
Festival
Nominated for
doctor there confesses his love for her. She, however, recalls fondly Golden Lion
a burgeoning relationship with an orchid breeder, who in turn sees
her as no more than a friend. Later the same dialogue is reprised
with the same characters in a starkly contemporary and urban setting,
with different outcomes. Based on the love stories of Weerasethakul’s

mother’s and his father’s perspectives respectively. These are
interspersed with loosely connected stories, characters and meditative
long takes of their physical environment. The Thai Board of Censors

replace the scenes with scratched celluloid in a show of resistance
against censorship.

Syndromes and a Century | © Fortissimo Films

INTRODUCTION TO APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL
By Assoc. Prof. Adam Knee, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is at the pieces, moreover, did not initially have
moment probably the most globally known much of an audience in Thailand and
started to develop their reputation,
2010 win of the Palme D’Or at Cannes for his
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall of art cinema. It is perhaps emblematic
His Past Lives. This is a bit of a paradox, of Apichatpong’s outsider status that
however, since he is on multiple levels an Syndromes and a Century
outsider to the Thai commercial and art while arguably his most accessible feature

most of those associated with the new Thai censors, for scenes perceived as irreverent
cinema, which has developed since the late in their attitude towards Buddhist monks
1990s, are based in Bangkok and many got and medical professionals.
their training from the highly successful
Thai television advertising industry.

However, Apichatpong grew up in more release in Thailand—and went on to help
rural northeast Thailand and received his form the Free Thai Cinema Movement
against censorship with other Thai activists,
intellectuals, and cineastes.
and video shorts, features, and installation

CZECH DREAM
In Czech with English subtitles

Czech Dream | © Taskovski Films

SAT 29 OCT | 4:30PM


Czech Dream AWARDS
students into young, aspiring businessmen as they launch a nationwide
advertising campaign for a hypermarket of the same name. The only Cracow Film
Festival
problem: the hypermarket does not exist. Eventually they succeed in
Won Don
getting 1000 Czech citizens to turn up for the hypermarket’s opening Quixote Award
– Special
Mention
Brussels
against consumerism quickly became fuel for political debate and a European
channel for the citizens to vent their insecurities. In a time when the Film Festival
ex-Communist republic has to decide whether to enter the European Nominated for
Union, the name “Czech Dream” also made them question – is Golden Iris
the government’s promise of a better country after joining the EU
trustworthy? Will it be another fantasy just like the hypermarket? While
revealing the tactics advertisers use to persuade the public, this light-

their ridiculous excitement over a good discount.

A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR: FILIP REMUNDA

several other prizes at festivals in Europe and the United States.

Petr Lorenc and artist Krištof Kintera, who
organised a grand public opening of the
propaganda pervaded. However the GIDADIGA Supermarket, which offered
country is now capitalist and inundated with non-existing products. When I heard about
commercial propaganda. Supermarkets
and shopping malls are expanding quickly,
and people are spending whole weekends a script and wanted serious companies and
visiting them. Czech Dream was our artistic business professionals to be involved.
response to this.
We wanted to be controversial. We wanted
to provoke. We succeeded in prompting the

media. The international press understood
what we were getting at with Czech Dream,
Philosophy of Photography, we talked but the Czech media did not. Nonetheless,
about the “electronic images” of our time, the Czech language today has gained a
new term of expression. “Czech Dream” is
an incident involving his friends, actor often used to refer to political trickery.

THE BLUE KITE Dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang

In Mandarin with English subtitles

The Blue Kite | © Fortissimo Films

SAT 29 OCT | 8PM


Set in China during Chairman Mao’s regime in the 1950s and 1960s, AWARDS
The Blue Kite conveys the impact of political movements on the
family unit. Told through the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, Tokyo
International
the story portrays the evolution of his family through the course
Film Festival
Won Tokyo
Grand Prix and
Communist China, different men assume the role of father to Tietou, Best Actress
altering the family’s dynamics and his relationship with his mother. The

countries like Canada and the United States, allowing The Blue Kite to

the great works depicting the harsh realities of China’s history in the
period following World War II.

Tian Zhuangzhuang | © Fortissimo Films

A STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM
By

Tian Zhuangzhuang is a fellow Fifth practice as a documentary within a
Generation Chinese Filmmaker along with narrative drama. Tian doesn’t attempt to
the likes of the better-known Chen Kaige lead the audience into taking a subjective
and Zhang Yimou. His works have deviated angle, but simply conveys the curiosity of

for a liberal approach to bold political most of us who are unfamiliar with the
discussion over blind political propaganda.
In Tian’s The Blue Kite, its intended critique through his observation before personally
deciding what to make of the happenings
over the decade has been restrained with depicted in The Blue Kite. Akin to the
objectivity through the witness account of The
an adolescent boy who grew up during Blue Kite is an important cinematic struggle
that time. It transcends traditional genre against restrictive state interventions.

CATERPILLAR Dir. Koji Wakamatsu

In Japanese with English subtitles

Caterpillar | © Wakamatsu Production, Inc.

SUN 30 OCT | 4:30PM


Lieutenant Kurokawa is the “god soldier” – a Japanese war hero AWARDS
who earns fame and glory for killing Chinese people in the Second
Berlin
International
home as a war victim, deaf and mute, with all four limbs amputated
Film Festival
and his face scarred with vicious burns. The burden falls on his wife, Won Best
Actress,
her duties as an obedient spouse in meeting with the lieutenant’s nominated for
unending demands for food and sex. With Caterpillar, Wakamatsu Golden Bear

of the same name, which was banned from reprinting in Japan for its
theme of sexual instinct. While the war is long past, what the audience
sees is its consequences upon those who were not at the frontline.
Caterpillar is a potent critique of the nationalistic fever that gripped
militarist Japan before the Second World War, and led the island
nation to commit terrible atrocities against its fellow Asian countries.
It also examines the gender inequality that once pervaded, and to
some extent continues to exist in Japanese society today.

Caterpillar | © Wakamatsu Production, Inc.

CATERPILLAR: SEXPLOITATION WITH A DIFFERENCE
By Assoc. Prof. Stephen Teo, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU
Caterpillar is the latest opus of Koji
Wakamatsu, a veteran of the exploitation as a “war god”, the soldier continues his
genre in the Japanese cinema who has existence making demands of sex on his
wife who faithfully complies. Wakamatsu
turns his material into deeper explorations
to describe soft-core porn movies)﴿. of human behavior preoccupied by the
Caterpillar, however, resists the pinku eiga primal sex drive even if one partner is
category although it undoubtedly carries deformed and mutilated. There is an anti-
elements of the genre. On the surface, war message as well, but Caterpillar above
there are scenes of exploitative sex, all exposes the rawness and the violence
of sex. While war delivers horrible injuries
and mutilations that are par for the course on the male partner, his sex drive delivers
in the genre. Set during the time of World both physical and spiritual violence on the
War II in Japan, the movie portrays a female. Wakamatsu conveys this message
young soldier who arrives home after in an uncompromising and therefore
suffering injuries that leave him a hump confronting manner.

27
OCT
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
LOCATION TIME 9pm
THURS

28 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
SCHEDULE
OCT LOCATION TIME
FRI

29
OCT
SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY
LOCATION The Alliance Française TIME
SAT

CZECH DREAM
THE BLUE KITE
LOCATION The Alliance Française TIME 8pm

30
OCT
CATERPILLAR
SUN

TICKETING
Tickets are priced at $10 each.
Students with valid IDs and senior citizens aged 60 and above can enjoy a discounted
price of $8*.

To buy tickets for The Battle of Algiers and/or A Clockwork Orange:
RELEASE DATE BOX OFFICE WEBSITE SALE
www.gv.com.sg

To buy tickets for Syndromes and a Century, Czech Dream, The Blue Kite and/or
Caterpillar:
RELEASE DATE BOX OFFICE WEBSITE SALE TELEPHONE
AXS stations
Now Available! Ticketbooth www.ticketbooth.com.sg 62962929
Outlets**

**Extra administrative charges apply. Ticketbooth outlets: Ang Mo Kio Hub, Century Square, Downtown East i-Help


VENUE
GV VIVOCITY THE ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

MRT: Take the North-South Line to NS21
Newton station. Head to Exit A and follow
the sheltered pathway that runs along
Prudential Building and follow the signs.
BUS:
MRT: Take the North-East or Circle Line
to NE1/CC29 HarbourFront station. Head
to Exit E. CAR:

BUS: roundabout, go straight and stay on Bukit

CAR:

escalator F.


INTRODUCING THE TEAM
FESTIVAL DIRECTORS
CAILIN CHOY

PROGRAMMING
GHAZI ALQUDCY

FESTIVAL MANAGEMENT
ALISIA PEK
CHOI JUYEON

EDITORIAL

PUBLICITY &
SPONSORSHIP CHEUNG KAI DICK
LIM ZUO HAN

DESIGN

INSTRUCTORS
SAM I-SHAN


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