Short Short Man

After having an unnerving and anger-filling presentation with the most evil, twisted, demented, fucked-in-the-brain, illogical, female of the species client in existence in Malaysia (I kid you not. This woman should be shot before it breeds) I zoomed through traffic for the KSFM Shorts.

The last time I was here I was a nervous wreck. It was my first short film that I'd ever tried to show to people I didn't know, and to top it all off I was acting in it. Somehow the fact that I'm not acting in this one lifted the anxiety quite a bit. Plus the bonus of having my girlfriend and friends around for moral and mental support.

Here's a list of the movies that were shown:

1. KERIS BERMATA KAYU (Abd. Samad Hassan / 2005 /10m40s)

I'm really sorry, Samad, but I only caught the ending, but the cinematography looked good and the story looked interesting. Since I only caught the last minute or so, though, can anyone tell me whether there was any kick-ass silat fight sequences I missed?

2. GAMBIR SARAWAK ASLI (Oliver F. During / 2005 /40secs)

I would've found this funny if I hadn't seen an award winning ad for condoms which was exactly the same.

3. A DAY IN THE CITY (Darien Nicholas Sekhon / 2005 / 9mins)

Was I the only one who didn't read the programme and know that this was directed by a 9 year old? A 9 year old! You should've seen him during the Q&A, cute as a button. And the film was ok. When I was watching it (not knowing a 9 year old directed it) I just thought it was kinda quirky. Quirky, but better than a lot of the entrants in the last KSFM I attended. Sure, I may be biasing my opinion now that I know it's a 9 year old, but I'm not exactly going to wax lyrical about how he didn't have the grace of Goddard or whatever film-appreciatists ramble on about.

Speaking of which, a film critic from Singapore was there and praised the kid, saying his talent was far superior to that of Hishamuddin Rais, the director of 'Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchester', which the critic thought was crap.

I dunno. I enjoyed '...Manchester'. I thought it was dope. But the kid does look like he's going to be flippin' mad skills soon.

4. MINI STARDUST (Joseph Liu / 2005 /20mins)

Continuing the theme of children, this was a film about two sisters, one eight and one six (I think) and I swear, these two girls were absolutely charming. It's like the Malaysian Dakota Fanning (Olsen twins may be more appropriate, but I don't think they were ever that talented). Huge reaction all 'round.

But there was also something interesting about it. Some people were uneasy about it. A lot of the girls in the audience could relate to the girls and smiled and laughed but a lot of the guys laughed very uneasily and shifted in their seat when subjected to two minutes of a six year old in a bikini dancing. Bernard mentioned voyeurism and exhibitionism and that whole reaction and uneasines during the Q&A. Then I turned to the director. He looked like he hadn't a clue what Bernard was saying with an innocent face that said, "I just made a movie about my nephews, what's all this voyeurism babble?"

I dunno. That's what I thought. I'm surprised this only placed third.

5. LETTER TO THE MOON (Shanjey Kumar / 2004 / 7mins)

Apart from a slight giggle from the audience at one point (and an uneasy one too), the third child-based film centered on incestual rape as a girl wrote a letter to the moon about what happened to her. Pretty good and disturbed the shit out of me.

However, one thing spoilt it for me. The supers at the end talking about the rape statistics. I didn't need that. The story said it all, there was no need for anything more than that. But perhaps the director really wanted to hammer the point home. Ah, well. The moral lesson at the end of the movie didn't grate me as much as the next one.

6. PULL THE WOOL OVER YOUR EYES (Nicholas Andrew John / 2004 /11mins)

By this point I was already thinking to myself, "hey. No weird experimental stuff that I don't get." This one was a straight up film about lies and cover-ups which was good, and the ending was a nice slice of disutrbedness, but I really didn't need the supers about how wrong it is to lie. Supers about rape statistics I can stand, but this wasn't necesarry at all.

By the way, this movie had little kids too (it's 'little kids' week! Buy one now!)

7. BANDIT'S DREAM (Mohd. Md. Noor / 2005 /9mins)

And more straightness! In film, no less. Even though the sound was pretty poor due to a NTSC-PAL transfer I just kept watching this film thinking to myself, "we've had a film about silat, a film by a 9 year old, a film about 2 charming little girls, a film about rape and a film about murder n' lies. Now there's a film by someone who went to the New York Film Academy. And he shot it on film. My movie's gonna come out like shit."

It's too bad about the sound, though. Another film featuring little kids.

8. SELF (MTV) (Oliver Lee / 2005 /5m25s)

Disturbing n' well edited. Too bad about the supers though (I have a thing about supers). Typo's everywhere. One of the few experimenty films (and when there's plenty of straight stories, the experimental films don't feel so... nggngnrh. Yeah. That's the word).

9. SOME LIKE IT WHITE (Khairil M. Bahar / 2005 / 10m30s)

Needless to say, I was worried as fuck. But they laughed. Thank fuck, they laughed.

10. DEAR STELLA (Fairuz Sulaiman / 2005 / 4m20s)

A love letter in visuals. I liked some of the visuals on it but (as the guy said his lecturer pointed out), it was very... still. No peaks. No troughs.

During the Q&A, the director talked in length about who the film was about (some chick he fell in love with on myspace/friendster) and my question of "where are all the emo directors?" was finally answered.

This one started the turn to the experimenty side in the films showcased.

11. 3 MONTHS LATER (Jeffrey Loh / 2005 / 7mins)

To quote one of the questions during the Q&A, "are all Chinese people this lonely?" One guy smokes and plays games, a girl eats noodles, a guy shaves... and stuff. Every 3 months. Or something. I'm sure there's a meaning. I haven't a clue what it is, though. I have a feeling if Eddy was still in the auditorium he'd be cursing up a storm by now.

12. CATCHING THE SEA (Woo Ming Jin / 2005 /10m15s)

Pete Teo's in this one. And Pete, sorry if you're reading this, but I really don't get this film.

And there's another kid! They're everywhere!

13. I WAS HERE (Kit Ong / 2005 / 10mins)

More kids! This one was freaky. Some Japanese woman who hears voices sticks a needle through her ear. Then 'ear' is free, for 'ear' is a cute little Japanese girl about 6 or 7 years old and they play and all is happy but 'ear' is not happy. She wants to play with 'eye'. So the woman pops out 'eye'. 'Eye' and 'ear' play with the woman and they're all happy. Then 'eye' and 'ear' stop playing with woman and woman is alone and other stuff.

Freaky. Freaky. Kids in experimental freaky films? Even freakier. Something about a little Japanese girl shouting "have you done it yet!?" to a woman as she tries to muster the courage to pop out her eye is just downright disturbing. This one won the Audience Choice Awards, too.

I still don't get it, though. But it freaked me out. And any reaction is a good reaction, as I discovered when I bumped into the Feminist.

I'm not too sure what the Feminist's name was. Pietra introduced us.

"Hey, Khai, this is (I can't remember)! She liked your film!"

"No, I didn't," she replied.

"Hahaha!" Said Pietra, "She's just kidding! ...You're kidding, right?"

"No," I said, "she's not."

Tony turned to her, "You didn't like it?"

"I hated it. I'm a Feminist," she said as she shook my hand, smiling, "but I look forward to your next one, let's hope it's better."

"I sincerely doubt it," I replied with a shit-eating grin.

Koay pulled me over after that strange encounter and said, "Any reaction is a good reaction." And he's right. I was waiting for that reaction. I was wondering why I hadn't met anyone I'd pissed off yet. And I finally did. She hated it.

Loverleeeee...

I also found it funny that a Feminist would hate my movie considering the guy in the movie is obviously a dick and the girl had a fair point (albeit taking it to intense extremes) about local men. I also noticed a woman in the audience during the Q&A grimace when I said, "where's the chick with the tits?" Some went "oooh". Another went "bleep!"

Are tits controversial? I think I know what to do for my next short film, then... hehehe...

Met some new and interesting people there too like Lydia, Moon and (sorry but I can't remember your name still!) another dude, to name (or not name) a few.

"Didn't you do a film about smoking last year?" asked Lydia.

Wow. Someone remembered that film. Cool.