{"id":27545,"date":"2006-10-19T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-19T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/?p=27545"},"modified":"2024-06-05T17:00:49","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T09:00:49","slug":"why-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/articles\/2006\/10\/why-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Care?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Should I be afraid to point a camera at something if it’s wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few nights ago, I watched a stout,\nthuggish man collect RM2 from people parking along Tengkat Tung Shin. I was\ntempted to point my little digital camera at him and record a video, to later\nupload on Youtube.com — but decided against risking my physical health.\nPerhaps naively, I expected the problem to be solved when a police patrol car\nslowly drove by. Both parties casually ignored each other. Later on, the police\ndid their duty by ticketing cars, but left the man alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching Andrew Sia’s cheeky\ndocumentary Kopi O Khau Sikit Kurang\nManis<\/em>, about general power abuse and lack of integrity within the Malaysian\npolice force, did not do much to reassure me. I was at this year’s Freedom Film\nFestival (FFF), an annual event — organized by community video-makers Pusat\nKomuniti Masyarakat (KOMAS) and sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation —\nthat presents ‘social and community films’: documentaries. There was a\ncompetition, part of the FFF: earlier this year, KOMAS began accepting\nproposals for documentaries, from which four winners were selected. The Justin\nLouis Award, named after the late first coordinator of KOMAS, came with a\nRM5000 grant and the technical assistance to turn these proposals into film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew was one of the award’s recipients this year. The others were Hariati Azizan for The Invisible Children<\/em>, a film about the marginalised existence of refugee children in Malaysia; Loh Yin San, Ong Ju Lin and Claudia Theophilus\u00a0for Twelve 11<\/em>, about the Street, Drainage and Building Act, a law that confers immunity to local authorities — that, out of negligence, approve plans to construct unsafe high-rise buildings; Rajan Paramesran for The Tapper and The Law<\/em>, concerning a rubber-tapper who finally wins a 21-year court case to be paid an RM22.40 salary the plantation owed him — after his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These four winners were screened\nalongside many other films — including two international movie features The Road to Guantenamo<\/em> and Imelda<\/em> — under agendas like ‘Police\n& Governance’, ‘Racism’ and ‘Dignity and Rights to Live’. These, with forum\ndiscussions between filmmakers, relevant activists and the audience —\nincluding the Tikar Talk, an informal free-for-all with everyone seated on mats\n— meant that I had a lot of information to absorb over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of issues for a compressed\nthree days, if one is so inclined. Few people were. Most of the invitations I’d\nsent out for this event — “It’s all about documentaries!” I said —\nwere met with reluctance, even ridicule, from my friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Attend the Freedom Film Festival?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday began quietly, in accordance\nwith my pessimistic expectations. I arrived in Taylor’s College, Subang, half\nan hour late to find less than ten people in the audience, and expected a\nsimilarly sized crowd throughout the rest of the festival. They were screening\ntwo previous films by Freedom Film Festival alumni: Amir Muhammad’s The Big Durian<\/em> (about Operasi Lalang)\nand Ong Ju Lin’s Alice Lives Here<\/em>\n(about the Broga incinerator). Having watched both of them, I decided to poke\nmy nose around outside the screening hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the right were booths, occupied\nby NGOs such as the Centre for Independent Journalism and Food not Bombs KL.\nVolunteers were telling people about the functions of their organisations, handing\nout leaflets, and convincing the newly-aware — and dazed — people exiting the\nhall to sign up for newsletters. To the left was Wrong & Rights<\/em>, a photography exhibition by KOMAS co-founder\nTan Jo Hann. Each photograph depicted a marginalised society in Malaysia, and a\nbrief caption under each summed up their plight. I warily eyed the faces that\nstared back at me from these pictures, unsure if I wanted to be aware of their\ntroubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival slogan, ‘Dare to\nDocument’, is pretty straightforward: a celebration of one’s right to free\nspeech and information, but also an acknowledgement of its difficulties.\nFilmmakers were not the only ones being dared here: ‘They dared to document. Do\nyou dare to watch?’ asked a promotional flyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The genre is frequently accused of\ncontroversy, I think, because a lot of these documentaries look at how the\nauthorities could be doing a much better job. No one — much less the\ngovernment — likes to be told they’re found wanting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tan Pin Pin’s Singapore GaGa<\/em>, my favourite among the documentaries screened that\nweekend concerned the aural quirks that play a part in Singapore’s identity. It\ntraverses an hour of fun personalities — including Margaret Leng Tan, the\nworld’s foremost proponent of toy piano interpretation, performing John Cage’s\nsilent 4’33”<\/em> — before ending\nwith footage of a government-organised New Year’s celebration: a man scales to\nthe peak of a huge, shiny balloon model of Mount Everest, then triumphantly\nwaves to the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My reaction to that empty gesture\nwas largely summed up by this image fading into street performer Melvyn,\nsinging a song of unrequited love called ‘Wasted Days, Wasted Nights’. At a\npost-screening discussion on Saturday, Pin Pin spoke about getting around\ncensorship in Asia, plainly mentioning that: “I’m scared, a lot of\ntimes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t blame her. Hearing about\nSingapore’s draconian Films Act, and watching, on Sunday, Martyn See’s Zahari’s 17 Years<\/em> — about Said Zahari,\nSingapore’s second longest-serving political detainee, and his criticisms of\nLee Kuan Yew — I could see the need for caution. The last I read of Martyn\nSee, he had been threatened with two years imprisonment or a $100,000 fine over\nSingapore Rebel<\/em>, another documentary\ncritical of Lee Kuan Yew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weirder things right here drive the\npoint home. Looking for alternative means of distribution, the staff of KOMAS\napproached several local DVD pirates. Those fearless sorts, who set up shop\nright across the road from the Bangsar police station, had this to say about\ncarrying local documentaries that the copyright holders actually encouraged them\nto sell: “It’s great stuff, but we are afraid.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Stay Indifferent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no denying that the socially-aware documentary, as a genre, has brought about real change. The films of Leena Manimekalai, filmmaker from India and one of the festival’s judges, are good examples. Mahtamma<\/em> and Break The Shackles<\/em> explore caste-ism and women’s rights in religion, in an Indian context — and these documentaries do what documentaries should do: put a spotlight on things that need attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At another post-screening\ndiscussion, Leena spoke of one of the ways her documentaries were used to\nhelped people: ownership of her films was appropriated by those she aimed to\nhelp, and used at their own events to raise awareness. Film gives a lot of\npower to people, normally deprived of a voice in the mass media, to have their\nsay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions at the FFF were\nuplifting. These weren’t sessions of wail and woe, as I had been afraid of, but\nrather made for a good use of time: questions were asked, concerns were voiced\nand strategies were compared. I learned the difference a letter to the\nnewspapers could make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Particularly heartening for me was\nlearning that, about a year after Ju Lin’s 2005 FFF winner, Alice Lives Here<\/em>, plans for building the\nincinerator at Broga have been dropped. We were told that Alice, the driving\nforce behind the protest against the incinerator, was thankful that the\nfilmmakers cared enough to document the issue, as the film helped generate a\nlot more media coverage and support for their struggle. Media coverage meant\npressure on the authorities, who now knew that further transgressions might not\ngo unpublicised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What better than seeing tangible,\npositive results of people putting their voices together to make a difference?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Preach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching the documentaries\nthemselves, though, was another thing altogether. I don’t think the problem is\nbravery. It isn’t ‘Do you dare to watch?’ as much as ‘How is the idea of\ntravelling to Subang to watch a bunch of potentially depressing films about\nhuman suffering more appealing than any number of generic weekend activities?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t get me wrong, I like what\nKOMAS is trying to do with the Freedom Film Festival: Make the World a Better\nPlace and all that. And it was obvious, by Friday afternoon, that many people\nthought the same — though few of them actually sat through all the three days\nof screening. As for me, I’m sorry: I had to conserve my energy. I’m just\ncareful of the amount of charity I would have been obliged to feel for the\nfilms’ subjects, and the responsibilities that would entail. The apathetic\nrecluse in me acknowledges that ignorance is bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Twelve 11<\/em> screened, we discovered that the guy shown crying onscreen was seated in the hall with us. Mr Phang, who lost his family in the Highland Towers tragedy, came to personally appeal to the audience for change.\u00a0Mr Phang ended by pointing a finger at the crowd, charging us to help NGOs approach the government to amend the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wished I didn’t see him crying on\nfilm. While I found Twelve 11<\/em> very\neffective in its delivery of information, I had already reacted towards the\npathos-driven approach of the filmmakers by suppressing any feelings I had\ndeveloped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can recognise manipulation when I\nsee it, and most of the films I encountered at the FFF were blatantly aimed at\ntugging my apathetic heartstrings. With this negativity in play, I had a\npersonal filter straining away many elements of these documentaries, leaving\nbehind neat packages of information: just the Issue, shorn of agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a simpler way to deal with\nthe onslaught — I found myself wishing the filmmakers had done this\ncondensation for me. Local news has left me with a lot of cynicism I find hard\nto shake off, even for films made by friends or people I know share my views. I\nwas getting tired of all the Voice of God dictations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Not<\/em> Preach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mien Lor is a name that popped up in\nthe credit rolls of almost every Malaysian documentary at the Freedom Film Fest\n— her own film, My Confessions – the\npicture diary<\/em>, was screened on Saturday under the ‘Gender and Sexuality’\numbrella. Mien, who works for KOMAS and is the FFF’s coordinator, told me that\nthe most important aspect of the festival was not the casual audience, but the\nvolunteers — an army of individuals who, by sheer proximity, should have their\nsocial consciousnesses well-flexed by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are turning up some nuanced\nwork. Roy Vimalan, one such FFF volunteer, had his film, Lost and Found<\/em>, screened on Saturday under ‘People & Culture’.\nA simple documentary about a foreign student who finds his sneakers at a pasar\nmalam’s second-hand shoe stall and has to buy them back, Lost and Found<\/em> was taken by some as a simple film about shoes, and\ntherefore deficient. Others considered it a creative approach towards\nfoundational property rights — and whether, in prioritising the rights we\nfight for, we end up regarding as unimportant the basics. Roy later said that\nhe was well aware that such a non-polemical approach could alienate viewers who\nmissed the message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched the documentaries at the\nFFF, aware that I was supposed to be getting an agenda-guided message from most\nof them. Some filmmakers were asked, during discussion: “What, exactly,\nwere you trying to say, here?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am aware that approaches with\nsentimental designs can be more effective at getting people to sign the\nrelevant petitions. Still, documentaries that examine their topic with an\neven-handed, velvet-gloved approach can be done very well, and my preference\ngravitates towards being allowed to judge myself the amount of emotional\ninvestment necessary for each issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Tapper and The Law<\/em>, we are shown, by a straight dramatic\nre-enactment, how the titular rubber-tapper took over two decades to get the\nmeagre wages his employers owed him. Apparently, the courts had lost his file\n— a judge, going through a backlog of cases before retiring, decided to settle\nthe dispute 21 years after it began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, during discussion, a child in\nthe audience questioned how such a miscarriage of justice could happen. The\nrubber-tapper’s flight was a situation that did not require much tear-wrangling\nto speak for itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Why? Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday evening, after performances by singer-songwriters Mei Chern and Azmyl Yunor, judges picked Twelve 11<\/em> as the best documentary amongst the Justin Louis Award commissions. It was an excellent example of a professional and effective presentation of an Issue: the negative impact of the laws involved in the resolution of the Highland Towers disaster was very real, and the anger and concern it stirred in the festival’s audiences was formidable — if a petition had been waved in the hall, I reckon it would have easily gained many signatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I agreed with the decision to award Twelve 11<\/em>. It delivered all the basic\ninformation I could possibly need on the Highland Towers issue, told its story\nwell and empathically. By this time, though, my psyche, in withdrawal, found\nthe more light-hearted, less didactic of the FFF’s offerings more appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prevalent question at the festival\nwas “Why?”: Why should a man help fight for women’s rights? Why\nshould a Malaysian help an Acehnese refugee? Why get involved? Why talk about\nthe things the government doesn’t want talked about? Will they arrest me under\nthe ISA? Why challenge the authority to perform their duties — and in doing\nso, risk trouble? Why should we help out after watching all these films? Why\ncare?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t have the answers to these\nquestions, and being at the FFF made me realise I was still inadequately\nfortified with the guts — whether out of fear or emotional economy — to care\nthis much. I was exhausted by this hand-wringing, I left the festival feeling\ntired, slightly older, and somewhat sadder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, considering my own reactions,\nI found newfound comfort in the fact that a band of socially conscious people,\nof their own volition and KOMAS’s assistance, were trying to help others\nthrough film. I can’t say I came away from the Freedom Film Festival unmoved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lainie Yeah is a design student and dilettante, infamous for blogging about her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Published: 19.10.2006 on Kakiseni <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should I be afraid to point a camera at something if it’s wrong? A few nights ago, I watched a stout, thuggish man collect RM2 from people parking along Tengkat Tung Shin. I was tempted to point my little digital camera at him and record a video, to later upload on Youtube.com — but decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3649,3540,3569],"tags":[245,3950,902,2844,3953,2705,223,3956,222,3948,1420,3966,3951,3961,3962,3952,3959,3965,3963,2707,221,3949,3954,3964,3960,3957,3958],"language":[7523],"writer":[7699],"class_list":["post-27545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-festival","category-film","category-review","tag-amir-muhammad","tag-andrew-sia","tag-azmyl-yunor","tag-centre-for-independent-journalism","tag-claudia-theophilus","tag-documentary","tag-film","tag-food-not-bombs","tag-freedom-film-fest","tag-freedom-film-festival","tag-hariati-azizan","tag-justin-louis-award","tag-konrad-adenauer-foundation","tag-lee-kuan-yew","tag-leena-manimekalai","tag-loh-yin-san","tag-martyn-see","tag-mei-chern","tag-mien-lor","tag-ong-ju-lin","tag-pusat-komas","tag-pusat-komuniti-masyarakat-komas","tag-rajan-paramesran","tag-roy-vimalan","tag-said-zahari","tag-tan-jo-hann","tag-tan-pin-pin","language-english","writer-lainie-yeoh"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27545"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39123,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27545\/revisions\/39123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27545"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27545"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}