DAY 3: SATURDAY APRIL 1 2006

Last night CinemAsia was proud to present the Made In Holland short film program to a full house at the Rialto. The program included the three selected entries from this year's CinemAsia Filmlab initiative, aimed at stimulating, facilitating and bringing to fruition the projects of Dutch Asian filmmakers. The CinemAsia Film Lab was funded by the Priscilla Pik-Wa Yeung Foundation and supported by the Binger Filmlab, providing film equipment and an editing studio, as well as the Nederlandse Film Academie, providing a producer for each project.

The shorts were well received! Jimmy Tai's Ping - featuring two of the cutest little boys around - looked at the Chinese tradition of honoring and respecting your ancestry. Susan Au's Verzameling was an interesting take on alternative uses of Asian adult material. Her Patch of Sky by Mayura Subhedar was a claustrophobic depiction of the sterile and colorless world of Gayatri, an Indian obsessive-compulsive academic. Distressingly, technical hitches interrupted the viewing of this film. The problem was quickly rectified and the screening continued, but, as Mayura later said, that the screen should go to black on such an occasion was her “worst nightmare come true”. After the screenings, actor Aaron Wan led the Q&A with all filmmakers up on stage.

Q&A with Aaron Wan				Jimmy Tai and Aaron Wan

The audience was given a second chance to see Lens, which had it's world premiere on opening night prior to the screening of Dumplings. In conversation with director Djie Han Thung, it emerged that, having been repeatedly rejected for funding by a number of Dutch organizations, Lens took 4 years to complete: “It's a profession for patient people”, laughed Djie Han. In the end, Thung had to use his own money to complete the film. This is a massive contrast to what was experienced by the Filmlab people. All three of these entries were completed within a time span of 4-8 weeks. Admittedly an intense process, but doubtless better than scrambling around for money and weathering repeated rejection. The CinemAsia Filmlab initiative clearly fills a gap in cinematic Netherlands.

Djie Han Thung				Mayura Subhedar

We also got to see Droomspoor, the big-screen debut of well-known theater and TV director Tonny Vijzelman. Droomspoor premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival in February 2005 as part of the Kort Rotterdams program. It also showed at the 4th International Human Rights Film festival in Nuremberg in 2005, which is unusual for a non-documentary film. Droomspoor tells the tragic story of a young Chinese couple, Hu and Ming, who stow away in a container to Rotterdam in pursuit of Ming's dream of a new life. This beautifully constructed piece is shot through with flashbacks of the couple's working life in a restaurant back in China, and inspired partly by the horrific events of June 2000 when 58 Chinese people were found dead in a container from Rotterdam in Dover. The film is a testament to the incredible hardships that people are prepared to put themselves through in search of a better life either for themselves or for the families they leave behind and must support from abroad. It's a subject that Vijzelman feels strongly about: “These people deserve our respect, not the slap in the face they often get when they arrive here.”

		Tonny Vijzelman

All in all an interesting day at the Rialto cinema, demonstrating the power of a medium that exists not only to entertain, but also to generate thought and debate. And a medium that can terrify - this afternoon CinemAsia screens Thai horror movie Shutter at 14.30 at the Rialto. Screening of the horror film and debate on Gruesome Asia are organised by ASiA of the university of Amsterdam and International Institute for Asian Studies in association with CinemAsia.