S-Express Philippines 2009 August 31, 2010

Youth Corner bekerja sama dengan MINIKINO untuk bulan Agustus ini kembalu menggelar S-Express dengan menampilkan film-film pendek pilihan dari negara Filipina untuk tahun 2009.

Total runtime: 60 min // Session is rated PG

Ang, Magpakailanman (Eternity)

Raymond Red / 1983 / 25min / Philippines / RATINGS TBA

Eternity is, in its twenty-five densely packed minutes, possibly one of the strangest Filipino films ever made. Its casually freewheeling camerawork evokes the giddy freedom of silent films, when the camera wasn't tied down by cumbersome sound equipment; its oddly angled shots and shadowy visual textures recall the German Expressionists. It's about a young man who is searching for a book, Ang Magpakailanman, which has the power to grant immortality. (Noel Vera)

DIRECTOR BIO
Raymond Red is one of the most important filmmakers the Philippines has produced. After bursting onto the filmmaking scene in the 1980’s with series of fantastically imaginative experimental works, he made two feature length works, and won the Palme D’or for best Short Film in Cannes in 2000. At the time of this writing he near completion on a new feature titled Himpapawid (Manila Skies).

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Ang Maikling Buhay ng Apoy, Act 2 Scene 2: Suring and the Kuk-ok

(The Brief Lifespan of Fire: Act 2 Scene 2: Suring and the Kuk-ok)

Auraeus Solito / 1995 / 9min / Philippines / RATINGS TBA

Based on a myth from the island of Palawan, Suring invokes the spell of Parimanis, a spell of absolute beauty, and befriends a Kuk-ok, a creature whose fingers are stuck together and can transform into any form, including that of Suring’s.

DIRECTOR BIO
Auraeus Solito directed a series of exciting experimental and documentary work on film, including Basal Banar (Sacred Ritual), Impeng Negro and the above. Recently, he has completed four narrative features: The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, Tuli, Pisay, and Boy. He is currently working on a new feature which, like Suring, will examine Palawan myths.

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The Retrochronological Transfer of Information

Tad Ermitaño / 1996 / 11min / Philippines / RATINGS TBA

Pursuing the work of Chandrasekhar, Inoue et al (1967), the scientist builds a machine to transmit a picture of the present back in time. His target: Philippine National Hero, Jose P. Rizal, who was executed in 1896.

DIRECTOR BIO
Tad Ermitaño is part scientist (he studied biology and has begun working in elementary robotics), part media artist (experimental filmmaker, installation and sound artist), part writer (brilliant essayist). Early video work includes Sausage, Hulikotekan v. 2.1, and Cathode Jam, recent work includes Local Unit, and

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Surreal Random MMS Texts para ed Ina, Agui tan Kaamong ya Makaiiliw ed Sika: Gurgurlis ed Banua

(Surreal Random MMS Texts for a Mother, a Sister and a Wife Who Longs for You: Landscape with Figures)

Christopher Gozum / 2008 / 15min / Philippines / RATINGS TBA

Using a Pangasinan-language translation of Filipino-American writer-activist Carlos Bulosan’s 1942 poem Landscape with Figures as a narration, a young expatriate Filipino filmmaker working in the Middle East sends surreal, random and found digital images of displacement and longing to his loved ones in the Pangasinan region in the northern part of the Philippines.

The film won the Ishmael Bernal Award for Most Outstanding Young Filipino Filmmaker during the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival 2008 in the Philippines.

DIRECTOR BIO
Born in the Central Pangasinan town, Philippines, Christopher Gozum studied Theater Arts in the University of the Philippines. He was a participant in the 2006 Asian Film Academy fellowship program and in 2007, he founded his own independent film company Sine Caboloan. He won the Best Short Film Award in Cinemanila in 2007 for The Calling and the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema in 2008 (for Surreal Random MMS…).

He is currently in post-production of a new feature 'Sinta and Arjuna', a pair of lovers, reunite after a period of break-up. Back together, Sinta confides in Arjuna her time with Rawana and a big showdown ensues in this post-modern re-intepretation of the classic Ramayana.

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Curated by: Alexis A. Tioseco (1981 - 2009), Criticine.com / Phillipines Free Press

The late Alexis A. Tioseco was a film critic, curator, and lecturer based in Manila. He was the founder and editor of Criticine, an online journal on Southeast Asian cinema.

Experimental work by four filmmakers across three decades each engaging with the transmission: on the surface of book, myth, info, images; deeper, perhaps much more.

A memorial will be held on 21st September, 4pm at The Substation Theatre to remember Alexis A. Tioseco & Nika Bohinc, two of indie cinema's strongest proponents.

Official Website: http://youthcorner.org