Southeast Asian film fest from tomorrow

A first-of-its-kind South East Asian film festival is being organised by G Foundation for Arts and Culture, Bengaluru.

The two-day film festival, on January 28 & 29, will be held at the National Gallery of Modern Art. According to R G Mohanaraman, founder of the G Foundation for Arts & Culture, and the festival curator, it focuses on films made in South East Asian region with an attempt to bring the region into focus.

The festival will feature films from Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam and opens with Soekarno from Indonesia by Hanung Bramantyo, a biographical film which tells the life of late Sukarno, first President of Indonesia, at 10 am.

The inaugural film at 2.30 pm Jagat (Bad/Brutal) from Malaysia by Perumal, a crime drama film which won the best movie award and best director award, is being premiered in India. Set in the early 1990s, it spotlights on the plight of Indian Malaysians forsaken by estate owners and forced to move to cities, surviving under harsh circumstances. It follows a mischievous 12-year-old boy Appoy and his relationships with his father, Maniam, and his uncles.

The Indonesian film, at 5 pm, Letters from Prague by Angga Dwimas Sasongko captures the tragedy of Indonesian students forced out of the country in the aftermath of the 1965 political turmoil, recollecting their past.

On January 29, the 1979 Vietnam classic The Wild Field directed by Hong Sen, at 10 am, focuses on a couple with a young child, struggling for survival with horrors of fighting all around them. Eking out precarious existence in a small wooden hut, they assist in war efforts to grow food for North Vietnamese soldiers. The film won the gold medal at the Moscow film festival.

At 11.30 am, it is Lao film Banana Pancakes & Children of Sticky Rice by Daan Veldhuizen, an insightful documentary centred around inhabitants of the remote village of Muang Ngoi in northern Laos as it prepares to open up to tourism.

At 2.15 pm, Thai film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Palme d’Or winner at the 2010 Cannes film festival, explores the theme of reincarnation, centring around the last days of Uncle Boonmee, who, together with his loved ones (including the spirit of his dead wife and lost son who has returned in non-human form), reflects on past lives as he contemplates reasons for his acute kidney failure.

Ringing down curtains is Vietnamese film Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass at 5 pm by Victor. Adapted from same novel by Nguyễn Nhật Ánh, it is a breathtakingly beautiful tale of childhood, innocence and brotherhood.

Entry is free. Seating on first-come basis.

For details email at [e-mail].