Malaysian Film Festival Part 2

Final notes from the Malaysian Filmfest.

Started Sunday off with two programs of shorts. There are a couple of words that can be used to describe the majority of the shorts offerings... "rancid" and "abyssmal" come to mind. Most of them look like really bad student film, some aiming for pretension and failing miserably, and some not even reaching for anything yet still failing nonetheless. Out of everything there, almost 2 & 1/2 hours' worth, barely five were decent. Most of these were animated shorts, and they succeeded because of an offbeat sense of humor, which I always enjoy. The one good narrative live action short was a solid horror piece in which a woman saw her doppelganger everywhere in her home. It tried to be a bit of a mind-fuck, which is admirable, and mostly succeeds. I believe it was called Inside Out, and funnily enough, it didn't seem very Malaysian... more British instead.

The feature film that ended the series was The Beautiful Washing Machine, a very indie, very uncommercial DV film made on a shoestring budget, about the alienation and sexual repression among the Malaysian Chinese. Pretty awesome. It's got many things which I like - slow, deliberate pacing, never talking down to the audience, long and graceful takes. And best of all, it's made on DV and makes me wanna make my own movies again. (DV's probably the only thing I could afford right now.)

Canon's got a DV Fest competition in Singapore which I might take part in, if I can think of a good script idea. 15 minutes or less... Time to get the ol' creative juices flowing again; they've been dormant far too long.

Spent the entire day blowing my nose and sneezing repeatedly in the office. I hate going to work sick. Maybe I was contaminated by dirty needles when I went for the blood donation drive on Sunday morning... But somehow, I doubt it. Need to get more fluids in me. Later.