The panel discussion will be moderated by Reframe: INLAND, ISLAND’s, curator, Patrick F. Campos and will stream live online via AFA’s Facebook and Youtube channels on Thursday, 31 March 2022 at 7pm (GMT+8).

The panel discussion that complements the Reframe: INLAND, ISLAND program assembles filmmakers, producers, and programmers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia whose base, work, or ongoing initiatives are metaphorically located off-centre, “inland,” away from or in critical dialogue with the historical centres of filmmaking that are Manila, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur.

The panel aims to provide an overview of “regional” filmmaking in and around Southeast Asia and endeavours to foreground the potentials of island thinking and the urgency of decentring the national cinema paradigm.

To be discussed are ideas that could constitute a grammar of inland/island cinemas and its possible translatability across cultures. Such ideas include the challenges encountered by place-making filmmakers working at a distance from the mainstream/mainland, the perils and necessities of documenting uneasy co-existence and precarious lives crossing porous borders, the fraught but productive representation of dis/continuous and contiguous territories, and the fluid mobility of motion picture artists that track cultural, political, and economic movements in and around the region.

It is hoped that the conversation can help figure a picture of a regional community and solidarity around pressing issues regarding cinema and otherwise, beyond mere economic transactions and the occasional visibility afforded by prestigious film festivals, and initiate cooperation and enrich existing networks across national borders.

Get tickets and view the whole Reframe: INLAND, ISLAND programme here. Screenings at Oldham Theatre run from 4 March – 2 April 2022, with an online programme streaming online from 3 March – 2 April 2022.

Speakers

Fransiska Prihadi

Fransiska Prihadi is an architect, co-founder of the art-house cinema MASH Denpasar and Programme Director of Minikino, Bali. She served as guest programmer & jurist for various national and international short film festivals, with experience as facilitator and mentor for filmmaking and film critic workshops.

Jay Rosas

Jay Rosas is a film programmer, writer, producer and organiser based in Davao City, southern Philippines. He co-founded Pasalidahay, a local film collective which organises film screenings and workshops. He has programmed films for the Ngilngig Asian Fantastic Film Festival Davao, Mindanao Film Festival, Salamindanaw Asian Film Festival, and Cinema Rehiyon. He has contributed film reviews and articles to different publications like Mindanao Times and New Durian Cinema. He produced and co-directed the short documentary Budots: The Craze in 2019, which gained local acclaim and was screened in different film festivals across the country and Southeast Asia.

Kong Rithdee

Kong Rithdee is a deputy director of Thai Film Archive. He has also written about film and culture for various international publications since 1996. He co-wrote The Island Funeral with Pimpaka Towira.

Nadira Ilana

Nadira Ilana is a filmmaker and sometimes film programmer from Sabah, Borneo-Malaysia. Whereas Malaysian cinema is predominantly Peninsular-centric, Nadira began organising film screenings as a way to platform East Malaysian and independent filmmakers. Drawing inspiration from her Dusun heritage, Telan Bulan Films was founded with a focus on crafting contemporary indigenous and minority stories. She is currently also on the Board of Advisors for the Sabah Creative Economy and Innovation Centre (SCENIC).

Moderator

Patrick F. Campos is a film scholar, programmer, and associate professor at the University of the Philippines Film Institute and a member of NETPAC. His research investigates the intertwining of political and cinematic discourses and problematises notions of ‘national’ and ‘regional’ cinema formations.

He is the author of The End of National Cinema (2016) and Scenes Reclaimed (2020), editor of Pelikula: A Journal of Philippine Cinema, and the special issues “Southeast Asian Horror Cinemas” for Plaridel and “Contemporary Philippine Cinema” for Art Archive, among others.

Along with regional cinema scholars, he co-organises the roving biennial Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference. He has programmed for Guanajuato International Film Festival, Image Forum Festival, Minikino, and curates the annual TINGIN Southeast Asian Film Festival in Manila.