ASIAN WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL 2009

ASIAN WOMEN'S FILM FESTIVAL 2009

October 15 – 20, 2009 at the Arsenal cinema, Berlin

The Asian Women’s Film Festival (AWFF) will be making its second appearance at the Arsenal cinema from October 15 – 20. We are happy to present 40 feature films, documentaries and shorts by women filmmakers from numerous Asian countries - Malaysia, Singapore, South and North Korea, the Philippines, VR China/Hong Kong, Thailand und Indonesia. The program also includes films of the Asian diaspora in Canada, Europe, and the USA.

The AWFF is organized by ASIA UNLIMITED e.V., an intercultural platform with an Asian focus, which was founded in 2007 as an independent, experimental and non-profit organization for cultural exchange between Europe and Asia.

Opening Film: Thursday, 15^th Oct.09, 19.00 Kino 1

Talentime - IN MEMORY of Yasmin Ahmad (1958 – 2009)

Malaysia 2009, 120min, Original with English Subtitles

As a tribute to the great Malaysian film director Yasmin Ahmad, who passed away this year on July 25, the festival will open with her last film Talentime. The setting of the film is a school competition where the complicated interplay between personal, religious and ethnic conflicts within the everyday multi-ethnic reality of Malaysia unfolds in a critical yet humorous way. Ahmad’s work has strongly influenced the themes and aesthetics of the new Malaysian cinema, and has introduced it to an international audience.

 

Focus North Korea:

At the first Asian Women’s Festival in 2007 we presented a series of five classics from the South Korean archives. This year the focus will be on North Korea. Five films covering four decades will offer a condensed panorama of North Korean cinema, which produced over 100 feature films since the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948.

Focus Asian Diaspora

Another section of this year’s festival concentrates on films of the Asian “Diaspora”, a term which itself raises questions: what legitimacy does the term have on a personal level as compared to a national Asian identity?

Focus Philippines (Sat. 17.10.)

More than 8 million Filipinos work outside the country, keeping the national economy going with money sent home. Many families are forced to live far away from each other, the separation becomes a part of their normal lives. Six films deal with this theme from the perspective of the Philippine immigrants themselves.

Focus New Asian Cinema

Nine other films from Malaysia, Singapur, South Korea, China/Hongkong, Thailand and Indonesia deal with the lives of women in Asia. The closing film will be Forever the Moment from Lim Soon-rye (South Korea 2008, 20.10.). Lims film is a reflective work about loss and defeat, which at the same time inspires determination for a new start.