Dreaming of Min in EXiS, Korea

Dreaming of Min, by Sherman Ong, 2009 (foto:Han Tan)

Escape Of Silence
A Singapore Programme at the Experimental Film And Video Festival in Seoul (EXiS)

Date: 12 September 2009 (Saturday)
Time: 1430
Venue: Samillo Changgo Theatre, Seoul
Duration: 86 min

This programme starts with a series of experimental videos that do not feature dialogues. A minimal exposition on the act of inspiration; a handiwork about to transcend the boundaries of its own craft; a balloon that flies into a room; a surreal cast that disappears into the forest; a boy and a mysterious sink; a sleepless lover in a foreign city; a monologue lamenting the bloom and doom of a transient love. Through these videos, one is challenged to explore the idea of escape - from Singapore, from reality and the boundaries of what is one's own and what is alien and foreign. In this journey away from Singapore, what have they found? Inspiration, love, a heightened sense of identity? Some of these videos were made by Singapore filmmakers while they were away from Singapore - Sewing Room in the Netherlands, Sink in Thailand, Wanderlust in Japan, 24hrs and Autopsy in Korea.

The films in the second part of the programme present different ways in which the filmmakers confront the boundaries of social and political debate or controversy. Beginning with the dreams of two women in Singapore, the films portray them attempting to transcend their social conditions, one as Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, and the other as the Queen of Korea. It is then followed by three short films where the filmmakers wrangle with more contentious topics: Autopsy, a mother coming to terms with her son's sexuality through a personal dialogue with him; and two banned works that feature the voices of the artists despite the restrictions on their art form.

This programme was visualized as a series of films that utilize the gradual transcendence of sound to illustrate the vocal, volatile human emotions and relationships. From silence and quietness, the films envelope lyrical musicality before exploding into rantings of punk and rock.

Curated by Tan Bee Thiam, Asian Film Archive.

Jakarta Biennale XIII: Of Human and International Relations

AsiaViews, Edition: 01/VI/Jan/2009
Jakarta Biennale XIII:
Of Human and International Relations.

Jakarta Biennale Blog

The Jakarta Biennale is the oldest Biennale in Indonesia. Now in its 13th edition, the Jakarta Biennale, organized under the auspices of the Jakarta Art Council, turns its attention to the city and the spaces within it.

Like any other metropolitan city, Jakarta with its 10 million inhabitants, suffers from the neglect of the human individual. Commercial gains, economic profit, greed and a chilling indifference have made the city a place with little space for the cultivation of the human spirit.

Through activities held in public spaces throughout the city, the 13th Jakarta Biennale attempts to strike a balance.

The early signs of the biennale’s conceptual design was indicated in The Women Photographers exhibition Mata Perempuan (Woman’s Eye) which kicked off the Jakarta Biennale in December 2008 . Though the exhibition itself was not up to standard in terms of quality and display, it expressed the basic problems of the big city that the 13th Jakarta Biennale wishes to tackle. The images portrayed were not, however, about the use of spaces such as megablocks, industrial estates and malls that rob the city of its green, but rather about the feeling within that construction: aloneness and alienation.

The Jakarta biennale is not the first biennale that relates to a city. It is, however, the first in Asia that gives attention to the social problems that a city spawns, not so much its historical buildings.

The 13th Jakarta Biennale, which comes under the main theme “ARENA”, is divided into three sub-thematic categories: zona pemahaman (comprehension zone), zona pertarungan (battle zone) and zona cair (fluid zone). In the city construct, where the spaces tend to be filled with economic, industrial and commercial concerns, the Jakarta Biennale wishes to create another space, one that spurs, creates and appreciates the arts thus creating balance to the human spirit. With that purpose in mind, both the battle zone and the comprehensive zone initiated art for community participation in public spaces.

Apart from its local focus, the 13th Jakarta Biennale takes pride of place among the international biennales held in Asia. For the first time since 1985 and in the history of Indonesian biennales, as well as in Southeast Asia, the 13th Jakarta Biennale explored the similarities of culture, tradition and art praxis between the various art works across Southeast Asia.
On 6 February, the exhibition of what is called the Fluid Zones, opens at the National Gallery in Jakarta, until 27 February.

The Fluid Zones comprise two parts: On the Map and Traffic.
On the Map features works by 14 Indonesian artists in their 30s and 13 artists of the same age group from the region, many of whom are well-known. Among the Indonesian artists are the very popular Eko Nugroho , Kus Widananto aka Jompet, Handiwirman Saputra, Tintin Wulia side by side with first-time biennale participants like Videobabes. Artists from the region include, among others, Dona Ong (Singapore), Vincent Leong (Malaysia), Montri Toemsombat (Thailand), Jason Banal (Philippines), and Hoang Doang Kam (Vietnam).

Traffic shows works by artists of various ages such as Victoria Cattoni (Australia), Stani Michiels (Belgium), Sylvain Saily (France), Nadiah Bamadhaj and Sherman Ong (Malaysia), Sara Nuytemans (the Netherlands), Phil Collins (U.K.), Adria Julia (Spain), Uschi Huber (Germany) and Takuro Kotaka (Japan), all of whom have had residency in one of the countries in the region.
A catalog will be published with essays by curators, critics, and arts lecturers focused on the Southeast Asian art scene. The contributors include the Netherlands-born Dr Thomas Berghuis, currently residing in Australia, who will give an analysis of artists’ mobility in the region. Prof Patrick D. Flores from the Philippines will review the history of Southeast Asian contemporary art, whilst Adeline Ooi from Malaysia will explore the trends and current issues in the works of young artists from the region. Indonesia will be represented by Enin Supriyanto with his review of the latest development of art infrastructure in Southeast Asia. Agung Hujatnikajennong, curator of the Jakarta Biennale Fluid Zones 09, will elaborate on the curatorial theme of the Jakarta Biennale ’09 and the works in the exhibition.

On 8 February, 3 – 5 pm, there will be talks given by artists at the National Gallery.

On 10 February, 9 am – 4 pm, a seminar will be held on Southeast Asian contemporary art featuring Dr Thomas Berghuis, Prof Patrick Flores and Nuraini Juliasturi as speakers.

For more info, call The Jakarta Biennale at The Jakarta Art Council at +62 21 319 37639, 3162780, 39899634, or Iwan at +62 8159213952. E-mail: Jakarta.biennale.09@dkj.or.id www.jakartabiennale09.com

By Carla Bianpoen

Senses of Cinema 2006 World Poll

It’s the year of ’Cinema of No Mercy'by Jit Phokaew


Is it easy to kill/pray?, a film by Sherman Ong, 2005

Kent Jones said in his Film Comment article that torture was a big item in 2006’s Cannes crop. I think he is very right, though I haven’t seen many films from Cannes yet. Cinema I saw in 2006 is full of unforgettable images or stories of extreme suffering or merciless people. As for physical cruelty, the most unforgettable scenes include scenes of torture in Flandres (Bruno Dumont, 2006), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach, 2006), Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006) and “Masters of Horror”: Imprint (Miike Takashi, 2006). The painful scenes or stories also include: the hilarious collective vengeance in Chinjeolhan Geumjassi (Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Park Chan-wook, 2005), the collective murder in The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute, 2006) and La Monja (The Nun, Luis De La Madrid, 2005), the ’invisible’ beating in Karov La Bayit (Close to Home, Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hagar, 2005), the near-lynching in Crónicas (Sebastián Cordero, 2003), the spousal abuse in Yeonae (Love is a Crazy Thing, Oh Seok-geun, 2005), the sexual abuse man did to woman in Ammahit Pissawas (The Passion, Saranyu Wongkrajang, 2006), woman did to man in Go West (Ahmed Imamovic, 2005), and man did to man in Omiros (Hostage, Constantine Giannaris, 2005), the organ chopping in The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006), the extreme punishment in Wang-ui namja (The King and the Clown, Lee Jun-ik, 2005), the dog killing in Is It Easy to Kill/Pray? (Sherman Ong, 2005), the excrement eating in 13 game sayawng (13 Beloved, Chookiat Sakvirakul, 2006), the tar-and-feathers attack in the television series “Carnivàle” (2005), and the abuse of children in Running Scared (Wayne Kramer, 2006), Voces inocentes (Innocent Voices, Luis Mandoki, 2004), Golemata voda (The Great Water, Ivo Trajkov, 2004), Water (Deepa Mehta, 2005), and Quando sei nato non puoi più nasconderti (Once You’re Born You Can No Longer Hide, Marco Tullio Giordana, 2005). As for emotional cruelty, the most unforgettable parts include the zoo scene in Happy Feet (George Miller, 2006), the saxophone prohibition in The Lost City (Andy Garcia, 2005), a middle-aged woman applying for a job in Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré (Work Hard, Play Hard, Jean-Marc Moutout, 2003), the people’s indifference to someone in danger in Viva Laldjérie (Viva Algeria, Nadir Moknèche, 2004), and the ostracism of AIDS patients shown directly in My Brother…Nikhil (Onir, 2005) and told verbally in Heaven’s Meadow (Detlev F. Neufert, 2005). Watching all these scenes gives me the same feeling that I have when I read the newspaper. It’s the feeling that the world might be turning into hell.

My time w Gertjan (RotterdamIFF Programmer) and Uli (German Filmmaker)

Forget Africa 29: Camera - Notes and travel diaries from programmer Gertjan Zuilhof researching a programme on African cinema with the slightly paradoxical title Forget Africa.

Sherman came a bit later to Dar-es-Salaam. Sherman Ong. Singapore filmmaker with Malaysian passport (Ong Beng Ann Sherman, as in that passport). Artist. Photographer. Theater and installation maker. Likes improvisation. Made a feature film in Japan (Hashi, 2008), that even the Japanese see as a Japanese movie. The first film of him I saw (and showed) was an Indonesian movie (Exodus, 2004).

Sherman had a busy summer. He took part in the Venice Biennale. He contributed to the big work on the memory of cinema, Life of Imitation, by Singapore artist Ming Wong (that got a Special Mention) and he competed in Cinema Digital Seoul in Korea with the film version of his installation work Flooding in Times of Draught.
Yes, Sherman works internationally and in a very personal way. Reasons enough to ask him for the Africa project.
I knew I would see Sherman only shortly - between him coming straight from Korean and we traveling on to Zambia - so I took some pictures for this blog during this overlap.
Too bad in Zambia my camera was stolen for a second time (this time I did not get it back) and the pictures were still on the memory card.
I liked my camera (that was also a gift) a lot so I had to get over that (I am, more or less, by now).


After my camera was stolen. With Cameraman Go and production manager Paul. With the camera of Paul's girlfriend. Picture made by Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

So I asked Sherman to send me some pictures he made himself. All the filmmakers in this project had their own choice of camera. Some preferred an older and trusted mini dv camera, others tried a new HD camera out. Sherman preferred the latest still camera. More filmmakers shoot nowadays with the video function of a still camera because the image quality is superior to that of a video camera. The sound only is a problem, but Sherman improvised his own solution for it. I took a nice picture of his camera on a cafe table. The brand name and type number were taped and it looked like a battered war photographers camera. Here the commercial shot of the camera, just to give you an idea.


Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Camera Sherman

So with the same camera he made some pictures of his cast. He is working on an improvised fiction film with the title Memories of a Burning Tree. I whish I could post the pictures in their full resolution, but with African internet and the picture ending up on this web side anyway, that is quite impossible.


Cast Link Rueben
Loyal readers might recognize this young man. He was Uli Schueppels assistant, body guard, line producer and in the end friend I guess. Now Link was selected by Sherman as one of his actors and I am quite curious to see him in this role. Link is an elegant and soft spoken man. Quite unlike most of his country men.


Still photo of Memories of a Burning Tree by Sherman Ong


Sherman also sent me some nice pictures of his shoot. In the use of space and light I see the hand of the filmmaker of Hashi.
Last thing he wrote me was that one of the actresses had malaria and that he was waiting for her to get better. Yes, we are in Africa.
I asked also for a picture of himself, but so far only the one below arrived. The resolution could be higher and you can see he did not take the picture himself. The situation is typical for shooting movies or pictures in slum neighborhoods in Africa. In no time the photographer or filmmaker is buried under a mountain of children. Dirty, dusty and smelly children I wrote here some time ago and a reader pointed this out to me. I don't think she minds that I did not change it. We went to Africa with fresh eyes. Fresh noses as well.


Sherman with neighborhood children

For more information and photos on Forget Africa, please go to:
Gertjan's Forget Africa Blog

Sherman with curious friends and camera


Cast Smith K. Kimaro
Click for Stills from Memories of a Burning Tree


Sherman with collaborators from the University of Dar Es Salaam Fine Arts Faculty, Tanzania
Click for Memories of Dar - friends and collaborators

Forget Africa in Rotterdam

Still from Memories of a Burning Tree shot in Tanzania by Sherman Ong


ScreenAfrica : Focus on African cinema

The 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam has announced a first major focus - ‘Where is Africa?’ This most extensive programme devoted to independent African filmmaking at any Western film festival in recent years will include new short and feature length films, live performances, historical films, storyteller's cinema, debates and a series of commissioned films by non-African filmmakers. The 39th IFFR takes places from 27 January up to 7 February 2010.

The focus on African cinema, part of the festival’s main section ‘Signals’, will concentrate on the filmmaking culture in sub-Saharan and Central parts of Africa. Festival programmer Gertjan Zuilhof, who took the initiative, about the project, said: "There is no real reason to do it now other than that we maybe should have done it much earlier. It is obvious that Africa is not represented at international film festivals or if so only by one or two token films. The idea was to go to the least represented countries and meet the local filmmakers. Partly, contemporary filmmaking in these countries is influenced by video and hip hop cultures. A number of artists have developed themselves into filmmakers after making music videos for their musician friends. However the films in ‘Where is Africa?’ will be most diverse in style and approach, from documentary to baroque fiction."

‘Where is Africa?’ includes of a series of events, presentations, performances, debates and screenings brought together by Alice Smits and Lee Ellickson, co-directors of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in Uganda. This part of the Africa focus will present short and feature length films, storyteller’s cinema (innovative live performances that combine storytelling and film), musical re-interpretations of classical African movies, works by maestro’s and pioneers of African cinema, rarely seen films from archives and events by artists who use film or video in their works or performances.

A special part of the focus will be ‘Forget Africa’. The IFFR asked twelve non-African filmmakers to get involved and, travelling through an African country of their choice, use their first impressions to each make a film. ‘Forget Africa’ will include the world premieres of commissioned films by Philipino filmmaker Khavn De la Cruz (Cameroon), Malaysian filmmaker Tan Chui Mui (South Africa), US-filmmakers Kimi Takesue (Uganda) and Deborah Stratman (Malawi), Indian-American filmmaker Pia Sawhney (Rwanda), German filmmaker Uli Schueppel and Singaporean artist Sherman Ong (Tanzania), Beijing based Philippine filmmaker Joanna Arong Vasquez and Thai artist and filmmaker Jakrawal Nilthamrong (Zambia), Indonesian filmmaker Edwin (Kenya), US-filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson (Angola) and Austrian artist Ella Raidel (Mozambique).
Forget Africa is supported by the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund. Other partners who back Forget Africa are the Göteborg International Film Festival and its Fund, several funds within the countries of the non-African filmmakers involved and the Goethe Institutes in Africa. On the Rotterdam festival's website, Gertjan Zuilhof blogs about his travels and meetings with filmmakers.

The IFFR will announce more focus programs as well as the lineup of its competitions, other main sections (Bright Future and Spectrum), CineMart and Hubert Bals Fund selections during the upcoming months. In 2009, the Rotterdam film festival counted 341,000 admissions and was attended by 2,500 international guests.

Special Mention for Ming Wong and Singapore Pavilion @ Venice Biennale 2009

Still from Ticket Seller by Sherman Ong @ Singapore Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009

Singapore Pavilion
Venice Biennale
7 June - 22 Nov 2009
Curator: Tang Fu Kuen
Artist: Ming Wong
Contributing Artists: Neo Chon Teck, Wong Han Ming, Sherman Ong

The Singapore Pavilion, entitled Life of Imitation, stages the co-existence of multiple worlds where language, gender, appearance and traditions constantly negotiate with one another. In playful and imperfect acts of mimesis and melodrama, this exhibition attempts to hold the mirror up to the Singaporean condition related to roots, hybridity and change.

Artist Ming Wong illuminates on Singapore’s significant cinematic legacy, while inserting a set of performative video interventions that reflexively address identity formation. His aesthetic strategy is to re-enact the characters and lines in specific scenes or situations that relate to otherness. The mimicry is sly and comic, and the video loops soon expose slippages in acting guises and stances. These imperfections of copying allow for a critical recognition of difference and ambiguity.

As part of commemorating yesteryear cinema, the country’s last surviving billboard painter, CT Neo, has been commissioned to collaborate with Ming Wong to create 3 canvases to be unveiled in Venice. Also seen for the first time outside Singapore are the rare artefacts by private collector HM Wong who has lovingly reconstructed - in the form of A4 paper ‘artworks’ - the evolution of local cinema buildings in the last century. This complements Ming Wong’s journey from Singapore to Malaysia photographing the fate of once beautiful but now deserted ‘architectures of entertainment’. In parallel, film-maker Sherman Ong’s ‘creative documentary’ brings us encounters with fabulous individuals whose deeds and aspirations constitute Singapore’s collective film memory.

Gone in 49 seconds...

http://mus-mus.org/at600/mm_photos.htm
At 600 internet time 4 Nov 2008, a very dangerous ginger escaped through the toilet window of a detention centre. During a re-enactment, it took only 49 seconds to go out the window, scale a fence, climb onto the roof of the covered walkway, and jump out of the compound. A public eyewitness saw a limping ginger with the shadow of the angel of death running pass a dead giraffe towards the southwest, a direction that is auspicious for his escape according to a geomancer.