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*Five Arts Centre is moving! New address and phone number coming soon.*

Amir Muhammad

KSFM’s “Malaysian Shorts”

By Benjamin McKay Monday evening’s screening of recent Malaysian short films largely confirmed the talent and richness to be found in the work of some of our leading independent filmmakers. Organised by Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia and hosted by the irrepressibly witty Amir Muhammad, these screenings are now firmly a part of the local film […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • January 24, 2008

Playing Catch Up

By Kathy Rowland Malaysia has a long history of conflicts over arts and culture, pitting artists against the Japanese during the Japanese Occupation, against the British during the Communist insurgency and anti-colonial movement that followed World War II, and, since independence in 1957, against the Alliance government. Over the past 49 years, the space for […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 5, 2007

Strange Bedfellows

By Benjamin McKay Two very varied feature films opened recently, the first two parts of a planned trilogy on love by acclaimed indie filmmaker James Lee. James has had a productive career, to date, and critical analysis of his work has often focused on stylistic comparisons with Taiwanese New Wave stalwarts like Tsai Ming-Liang (who, […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • May 22, 2007

Press Statement on the banning of “Apa Khabar Orang Kampung”

By Artis Pro Activ (APA) Artis Pro Activ (APA) unreservedly condemns the Malaysian Film Censorship Unit’s decision to ban director Amir Muhammad’s documentary film Apa Khabar Orang Kampung (Village People Road Show) which documents the lives of former Malay Muslim Communist Party Malaya members. The film was submitted to the Censorship Unit on January 18th […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • February 22, 2007

Telltale Lovebites

By Benjamin McKay It has been an important year for independent Malaysian cinema. Triumph on the international festival circuit, success with releases on the screens of major cinemas, both here and overseas – it is cause for celebration that we end the year with another landmark feature. You’ve heard this by now: made with the […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • December 20, 2006

Free To Speak

By Kee Thuan Chye Let’s start with a number of disclaimers: first, I’m writing as an individual and not as a representative of any organisation; second, I’ll be talking about freedom of expression and culture, specifically relating to the performing arts in Malaysia; third, there’s nothing I will tell you that you don’t already know. […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 19, 2006

Why Care?

By Lainie Yeoh 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 […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 19, 2006

Listening to Pomeloes

By CH Loh What do the films Lelaki Komunis Terakhir and Gubra have in common? Obvious answer: they were both Malaysian films that stirred local controversy in recent times. Less obvious answer: they both contained music by composer Hardesh Singh. When one talks about film, composers rarely get mentioned. “Film is not a medium for […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • October 11, 2006

Bringing Chin Peng Home

By Sharaad Kuttan It is near impossible to write about Lelaki Komunis Terakhir without dealing with the immediate politics of the affair; the circus of the UMNO-directed banning (including the Arts Minister’s intervention) as well as a divided media, caught between anti-communist hysteria and liberal breast-beating. So perhaps the only thing to do in order […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 20, 2006

Where have all the Commies Gone?

By Zedeck Siew After watching Amir Muhammad’s Lelaki Komunis Terakhir l remembered I had a copy of In Search of the Revolution: A Brief Biography of Chin Peng, by historian CC Chin. I rescued this from a pile of dusty paper in my room several days later. It begins with a flourish: “There is no […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 20, 2006

Rockin’ in the Free World

By Chuah Siew Eng Music as a tool of political consciousness doesn’t happen often enough — perhaps unsurprisingly for a society wary about the uncontrolled consequences of freedom of expression. But that rare occasion of bands banding together to bandy an important issue did happen recently when, on the last weekend of May, groups like […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 12, 2006

Talk Is Action

By Benjamin McKay There will be some among you who believe that talking about problems, about crises and about rights is a passive act. All talk, no action. I disagree with those sentiments. Talk, conversation, dialogue, argument and general discourse ARE actions. Identifying problems and the responses to those problems are important diagnostic activities too. […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • June 15, 2006

Talk Is Action

By Benjamin McKay There will be some among you who believe that talking about problems, about crises and about rights is a passive act. All talk, no action. I disagree with those sentiments. Talk, conversation, dialogue, argument and general discourse ARE actions. Identifying problems and the responses to those problems are important diagnostic activities too. […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • June 15, 2006

Janganlah Stress, It’s Only Cameronian

By Benjamin McKay These awards have in the past received criticism from some bitter and twisted quarters – allegations of nepotism, cronyism, corruption, lavish waste – and accusations of being nothing more than a back slapping, back stabbing orgy of arts industry indulgence. So I thought perhaps I should start my review of the evening […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • May 11, 2006

Saidah! the Phenomenon

By Jenny Daneels “Next time I say I want to do something like that [M! the Opera], please bang me on the head, will you?” says Saidah Rastam. We are in Scat Productions. Her show opens in two weeks and she is busy putting together a tape to make up for the fact that many […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • March 18, 2006

Konfrontasi: With Ourselves

By Chuah Siew Eng “If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” The significance of history, succinctly explained by Aristotle, comes too late for me and generations of schoolchildren for whom history is a jumble of meaningless dates and past happenings with little impact on our everyday lives. Little did we know […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • December 9, 2005

Whose Film Is It Anyway?

By Benjamin McKay The Fifth Asian Film Symposium and Inaugural Forum on Asian Cinema took place at Singapore’s Substation from 9-18 Sep 2005 and a number of Malaysian filmmakers crossed the Causeway to join their Southeast Asian colleagues in a rigorous and engaging attempt to answer some key questions about the state of filmmaking in […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • September 21, 2005

Too Many Awards, Not Enough Movies

By Kakiseni Paparazzi Talk about efficiency. For the entire first half of the 18th Malaysian Film Festival 2005 (FFM18) awards ceremony on Sun 17, July 2005, winners were ushered off the stage as soon as their awards were firmly in hand. We were thus thankfully spared of boring acceptance speeches. But truth be told, we […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • July 21, 2005

Tumpang Glamour

By Fiona Lee It was with mixed feelings of pride and nostalgia that I attended three Malaysian film screenings at the 27th Asian-American International Film Festival in New York City. From July 16 to 24, New Yorkers had the opportunity to view a sampling of works by Malaysian independent filmmakers, which were showcased alongside other […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • September 17, 2004

Making Bahasa Indonesia Sexy

By Amir Muhammad We’ve all heard the joke about the Polish starlet who went to Hollywood and tried to get ahead by sleeping with a screenwriter. It’s no longer PC to identify a whole nationality with dumbness, but the underlying point about the essential powerlessness of the man or woman who writes for the screen […]

  • Azwan Ismail
    Azwan Ismail
  • February 19, 2004