Asian Shorts for Cine Veritas Human Rights Festival 2006

The UP Film Institute is proud to present the full selection for the
Asian Shorts Program of the Cine Veritas Human Rights Film Festival 2006 billed as follows:

The Politics of Oppression
This program takes a look at the experience of oppression from the
perspective of the individual—be it in a social,
ethical, political, and/or sexual context. East and Southeast Asian in
scope, but global in bearing, these films function
as an invitation to alternative perspectives—they won’t give you all
the right answers, but, more importantly, they bring up better questions.

The Pain of Others
(2005 / Taiwan / 30 min / short feature)
Writer-director: Tom Shu-Yu Lin

The night of the presidential election, March 18th, 2000, marks the
setting for Lin’s allegorical
critique of the Taiwanese military system, where a coastguard hazing
turns ugly, punctuated
by the appearance of a mysterious woman named “28.”
*Winner of best fiction award and best screenplay - 28th Golden Harvest
Film Festival
*Winner of best film - 5th South Taiwan Film and Video Festival
*Winner of best narrative film - 8th Taipei Film Festival

Since he lived in the United States when he was a child, Tom Lin grew
up learning both Chinese and English,
giving him the ability to communicate fluently in both languages. He
currently works in the industry as a freelance
writer and filmmaker, working on various productions such as the role
of the 1st Assistant Director for Tsai Ming-Liang’s
“The Wayward Cloud.” As part of the Taiwanese mandatory military
service, he was sent to be a coastguard for two years.
http://www.odfilms.com

Mass Grave
(2002 / Indonesia / 26 min / documentary)
Writer-director: Lexy Junior Rambadeta

Old wounds resurface when the bones of alleged communist activists
massacred during the Suharto
regime are exhumed in Central Java. This documentary succeeds in
presenting evidence of the cruelties of the
past and the unresolved social stigmas still present in Indonesian
society today.

A graduate of the faculty of social and political science from Gadjah
Mada University, Lexy Junior Rambadeta launched
his career when he left his hometown, Yogyakarta, and joined The
Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1998. In 2001,
he established Off Stream (http://offstream.net/)—"the voice of the
voiceless"—a support body for Indonesian independent
documentary filmmakers in Jakarta.

My Confession- the picture diary
(2005 / Malaysia / 10 mins / silent film)
Writer-director: Mien Lor

“My Confession” is the filmmaker’s personal meditation on the politics
of space and desires in the context of gender.

Activist and filmmaker Mien Lor believes that filmmaking is at once
personal and political. She produces documentaries
and social films for www.komas.org and organizes the only human rights
film festival in Malaysia—www.freedomfilmfest.komas.org

Speakers Cornered
(2006 / Singapore / 28 min / documentary)
Writer-director: Martyn See

From September 16 to 19, 2006, when the Singapore government refused to
lift its long-standing ban on
public protests during the 2006 IMF-World Bank meetings, a small group
of local activists initiated a face-off
with the police by attempting to stage a pro-democracy march from
Speakers' Corner, a government-designated free-speech zone—
resulting in a theatrics of impasses, “threats” and sing-alongs.

When not surviving 15 months of police investigation for the making of
a banned short film “Singapore Rebel,” deemed to be an illegal
political film under the law, Martyn See is an otherwise law-abiding
freelance video editor who enjoys the irony of working on films like
Jack Neo’s upcoming feature, “Just Follow Law” (2007).
http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com/

---
Total running time: 94 min

The Asian Shorts Program for this year’s Cine Veritas screens
on Dec 7 Thu 5 p.m. (Cine Adarna Main Cinema, Magsaysay Avenue
Entrance);
Dec 8 Fri (2nd Floor Videotheque, Osmeña Avenue Entrance) right after
the 2 p.m. Film and Human Rights Forum;
Dec 9 Sat 2 p.m. (2nd Floor Videotheque, Osmeña Avenue Entrance)
Drop by the UP Film Institute to avail of free passes.

Cine Veritas Human Rights Film Festival 2006
Truth sets us all free...

University of the Philippines Film Institute
(Member, CILECT/International Association of Film and Television
Schools)
Plaridel Hall, Ylanan Road, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Tel: 9818500 (UP Trunkline) local 2669, 2670; 9206863 (Telefax)
Cine Adarna, Magsaysay and Osmena Avenues, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Tel: 9818500 (UP Trunkline) local 4286, 4289; 9262722 (Telefax)