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The World Festival Circuit Post-Covid: Resilience, Mutations and Opportunities
with Jean-Michel Frodon
moderated by Thong Kay Wee
In this talk, French journalist and film critic Jean-Michel Frodon will explore what we have learnt, regarding film festivals, from the COVID-19 crisis. What were the useful responses? What needs to be improved, or changed? To what respect is the festival situation likely to transform the cinema scene in general?
Jean-Michel Frodon is a journalist and film critic, who wrote first at weekly “Le Point” (1983-1990), and then daily at “Le Monde” (1990-2003). He was the editorial director of Cahiers du cinema (2003-2009), and now regularly writes for Slate.fr and many journals and magazines, both in print and online, in France, USA, South Korea, Spain and Balkans. He is also professor at Sciences Po Paris (Political Sciences Institute) and Honorary Professor at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
As a cinema historian, he is the author or editor of many books, including La Projection nationale, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Conversation avec Woody Allen, Horizon cinéma, Le Cinéma chinois, Cinema and the Shoah (SUNY Press), Robert Bresson, Gilles Deleuze et les images, La Critique de cinéma, and many more. He also acts as programmer and curator in festivals and exhibitions.
Thong Kay Wee is a cultural worker and moving image curator based in Singapore. He is currently the Programme Director at the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), where he is responsible for the festival’s overall programming strategy. He was previously the Programmes and Outreach Officer at the Asian Film Archive (AFA) from 2014 to 2021. Aside from overseeing partnerships and promotions, he was responsible for establishing the AFA’s regular film programmes at its new dedicated cinematheque since 2019, with a focus on both contemporary and classic Asian film selections.
During his tenure at the AFA, he also developed and presided over new specialised programmes such as the Southeast Asian omnibus film Fragment (2015), the exhibition Celluloid Void: The Lost Films of Southeast Asia (2015 – 2016), the Asian Restored Classics film festival (2016 – 2019), the multidisciplinary arts exhibition series State of Motion (2016 – 2021) commissioned by the National Arts Council of Singapore, the film programme Singular Screens (2018 – 2021) presented as part of the Singapore International Festival of the Arts, and the commissioning Asian cinema essay project Monographs in 2020.
Writing Resistance
with Alfian Sa’at
moderated by Eddy Tan
In the face of discursive oppressions by state actors and powers, how can the medium of text be mobilised as a form of dissent and active citizenry to speak truth to power and resistance? Exploring the different strategies adopted by artists and filmmakers from around Southeast Asia to create work under authoritarian conditions, Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at will survey and situate possibilities for expressing dissent and counter-narratives through both regional case studies and personal experiences.
Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with Wild Rice. His published works include three collections of poetry, ‘One Fierce Hour’, ‘A History of Amnesia’ and ‘The Invisible Manuscript’, a collection of short stories, ‘Corridor’, a collection of flash fiction, ‘Malay Sketches’, three collections of plays as well as the published play ‘Cooling Off Day’. Alfian has won Best Original Script at the Life! Theatre Awards four times, in 2004 for ‘Landmarks’, in 2010 for ‘Nadirah’, in 2013 for ‘Kakak Kau Punya Laki’ (Your Sister’s Husband) and in 2016 for ‘Hotel’ (with Marcia Vanderstraaten).
In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. He has also been nominated for the Singapore Literature Prize three times, for ‘Corridor’ (1999, Commendation Prize), ‘A History of Amnesia’ (2004) and his translation of the novel ‘The Widower’ (2016)
Eddy Tan is a filmmaker, educator, and organiser based in Malaysia. A faculty member of the Faculty of Cinematic Arts (FCA) in Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Eddy lectures on topics including Production Management and Silent Filmmaking 101.
As an organiser, Eddy was previously involved in projects such as the Johor Bahru Film Grants, initiated by Thick City, as well as co-programming the satellite programme Citarasa | Hadam | Nikmat for Johor Bahru Writers and Film Festival 2017. Eddy is currently the Technical Manager of SeaShorts Film Society where he oversees the digital infrastructure of Society programming and its annual flagship project, SeaShorts Film Festival.
The Art of the Story: From Text to Screen
with Phan Dang Di
moderated by Alfonse Chiu
Vietnamese filmmaker and screenwriter Phan Dang Di will share about his practice as filmmaker, screenwriter, and educator, who has worked on both independent and commercial productions. With a general focus on developing a good story, and how to turn it into a good screenplay ready for shooting, Phan’s masterclass will draw from his personal experiences as a director and screenwriter of independent films that have since travelled the festival circuit, and his own writing process.
A leading director and trailblazer in the Vietnamese film industry, Phan Dang Di’s films have been screened at numerous international film festivals around the world, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Hong Kong, Moscow, Stockholm, Vancouver, Busan… Winner of both the ACID and SACD Awards at Cannes for his debut features Bi, Don’t Be Afraid, he has also competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival via his second feature Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories. In 2019, Di wrote and directed He Serves Fish She Eats Flowers – an episode belonging to the miniseries Food Lore for HBO Asia.
Beside his career as a filmmaker, Di also taught Film History, Directing, and Screen-Writing at Hanoi National University and Fullbright Vietnam University. He is also president of Autumn Meeting, an annual international cinema event in Da Nang, Vietnam.
Alfonse Chiu is a writer, artist, curator, and researcher working at the intersection of text, space, and the moving image. Departing from investigations into the histories and contestations of both the built and natural environments in Southeast Asia, their practice focuses on networked readings of the economies of geopolitical and socio-economic imaginaries as mediated by cartography and other modalities of spatial representation. They currently head SINdie, an editorial platform exploring Southeast Asian film culture(s), where they work on editorial direction, research, and special projects. They are also the founder of the Centre for Urban Mythologies, a project-based research initiative interested in the (im)material tensions present within the urban contexts of the region, and co-founder of the Moving Picture Experiment Group, a curatorial and research collective exploring the polyvalency of the moving image medium in contemporary practices. They are currently the programme manager of the SeaShorts Film Society.
Going International: Film Festivals as Pathway for Young Filmmakers
with Raymond Phathanavirangoon
moderated by Miranda Cardenas
SEAFIC Executive Director Raymond Phathanavirangoon will discuss in detail about how film festivals are instrumental in a filmmaker’s international career, as well as giving a breakdown of the major film festivals around the world. Drawing from his experiences as sales agent, festival programmer and international producer, Phathanavirangoon will delve into what makes a film project international, and advise on the best pathway for young filmmakers to embark upon for their international film career.
Raymond Phathanavirangoon is a film producer and film festival programmer. Most recently he co-founded and serves as Executive Director of Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (SEAFIC), an intensive script and development lab for Southeast Asian filmmakers. Previousl,y he was international programmer for Toronto International Film Festival as well as Programme Consultant for Hong Kong International Film Festival and Programme Delegate at Cannes Critics’ Week.
His producing credits include Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s SAMUI SONG and HEADSHOT, Boo Junfeng’s APPRENTICE, Josh Kim’s HOW TO WIN AT CHECKERS (EVERY TIME), Pang Ho-Cheung’s DREAM HOME, the upcoming 13 LIVES by Ron Howard, among others. He was named Future Leaders: Producers in 2013 by Screen International and was awarded Producer of the Year in 2017 by Asian Film Commission in Busan.
Miranda Cardenas is a project manager and producer currently based in Singapore. From 2017 to 2020, she worked at Sinema Media, where she was involved in projects such as the National Youth Film Awards, organised by *Scape, and the Utter project initiated by the Singapore Writers Festival, as well as served as an editor for Sinema.SG, a platform for regional film news and reviews. Currently, she is the Operations Manager for this year’s SeaShorts Film Festival, having been Assistant Festival Manager and Assistant Publicity Manager for its previous editions.
Film Writing in the Age of the Web Found Footage
with Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis
moderated by Julie Loffi
Why do we still organize expansive shooting to create new images in a world already saturated with representations? Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis invites us to discover his methods of filmmaking through the prism of the web and film editing. A dive into the experience of real time, of flow, of liquid art, where time is sculpted within the images themselves.
Born in France in 1988, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis lives and works between Paris and Brussels. After studies at INSAS, Sint-Lukas school of arts and Le Fresnoy – National Studio of Contemporary Art, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis is developing a “cinématière”, a hybrid artistic practice that expands cinema to the field of contemporary art. His work questions technologies, memory, the virtual and explores the porous worlds of the image. His films have been selected and awarded in many international festivals (Cannes, Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand…) and exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris ; at the Fondation Cartier, Paris ; at the Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing ; La Villette, Paris ; Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, Paris; Pearl Art Museum, Shanghai; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Museum of Communication, Frankfurt.
In 2021, his work is presented in several upcoming group exhibitions including “The New Frontiers of Video Games” at La Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie and the exhibition “Un monde à votre image”, Bourse Révélation EMERIGE 2020 in Toulon in collaboration with the Hôtel des Arts TPM and the Villa Noailles.
Julie Loffi is a producer based in France. She holds a double degree in Film History and Business from l’Ecole du Louvre and Essec Business School in Paris. She spent two years as a cultural coordinator for the French cultural institutes in Taiwan and Malaysia and is currently SeaShort’s coordinator with the Clermont-Ferrand Festival in France, as well as Alliance Française KL and the French Embassy in Malaysia.
The Many Lives of the Film
with Meiske Taurisia
moderated by Alfonse Chiu
Indonesian producer, programmer, and distributor Meiske Taurisia will explore the ecosystem of the film industry and the lifecycle of a film from conception to exhibition and beyond. Drawing from her works as a producer, co-founder of production companies babibutafilm and Palari Films, manager of distribution platform Kolektif, and founder of microcinema Kinosaurus, Taurisia will discuss her experiences in seeing projects, both shorts and features, through from an initial idea to distribution, and examine how a film can maximise its life in both the festival circuit and the cinema.
Meiske Taurisia entered the film industry in 2004 as a Costume Designer. Continuing as a producer, she produced Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (2008, Rotterdam-Fipresci Award), Postcards from the Zoo (2012, Berlinale), Rocket Rain (2014, Karlovy Vary), The Fox Exploits the Tiger’s Might (2015, Critic’s Week, short film), Following Diana (2015, Toronto, short film), Love Story Not (2015, Busan, short film), and Cuts (2016, IDFA, feature documentary). In 2016, she co-founded Palari Films and produced Posesif (2017, SGIFF), and Aruna & Her Palate (2018, Culinary Cinema, Berlinale). Both films won several awards at Festival Film Indonesia, such as Best Director, Best Actor & Actress, Best Scenario Adaptation, and Best Supporting Actor.
Aside from producing films, in 2013 she founded Cipta Citra Indonesia Foundation, a social enterprise that focuses on supporting the independent film scenes in Indonesia. Started with a distribution program for independent films – Kolektif, a micro cinema – Kinosaurus, a film lab for young and rising filmmakers – LOCK, a mini festival – Film Musik Makan, and a film archival forum – Layar.
Alfonse Chiu is a writer, artist, curator, and researcher working at the intersection of text, space, and the moving image. Departing from investigations into the histories and contestations of both the built and natural environments in Southeast Asia, their practice focuses on networked readings of the economies of geopolitical and socio-economic imaginaries as mediated by cartography and other modalities of spatial representation. They currently head SINdie, an editorial platform exploring Southeast Asian film culture(s), where they work on editorial direction, research, and special projects. They are also the founder of the Centre for Urban Mythologies, a project-based research initiative interested in the (im)material tensions present within the urban contexts of the region, and co-founder of the Moving Picture Experiment Group, a curatorial and research collective exploring the polyvalency of the moving image medium in contemporary practices. They are currently the programme manager of the SeaShorts Film Society.
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