KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 — Curious what Southeast Asian filmmakers have to offer? Want to gorge on all 100 of them in three days? Now you can, if you are in Kuala Lumpur from tomorrow onwards.
Festival director Tan Chui Mui is touting the "non-stop marathon screenings meant for hardcore cinema lovers" as part of the first-ever SeaShorts Film Festival this week.
"If you are crazy, you can take the challenge to watch 100 short films in SeaShorts, where you will be locked up in a room and we will give you food and drinks during short breaks.
"Yes, you can watch all 100 short films in 3 days. Isn’t that great?" the independent filmmaker said in a statement.
To be precise, that is 128 short films from all 10 South-east Asian countries — Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam — a festival spokesman confirmed to Malay Mail Online.
Cinema geeks or movieholics who want to sign up for this challenge will have to get the Cinephile Pass with a minimum donation of RM300, with a certificate waiting for those who successfully complete the entire course.
For other film lovers who may not have the time or stamina, you can register online for the three-day festival pass with minimum RM50 donation or the daily pass with minimum RM30 donation, while students in a group can sign up for a free festival pass.
Anyone can join the festival as long as they register, with no deadline for the online registrations and walk-in registrations also allowed, the festival spokesman said.
"You will have a chance to meet the filmmakers, the curators, the juries, and have passionate discussion about films," Tan said, who had a life-changing experience when attending her first short-film festival in 2005 made her quit her job to be a full-time filmmaker.
The festival was launched this evening with a screening of Fragment, an omnibus film featuring 10 Southeast Asian shorts, with a repeat screening on Sunday morning for registered guests with passes who missed the opening ceremony.
The very best
The festival will also involve three contests for short films, namely the Sea Shorts competition, Next New Wave competition, From Wave to Wave with all entries to be screened to festival goers.
For the Sea Shorts award for the best regional short film, 20 films shortlisted from 265 submissions will contend for this honor, which comes with prizes sponsored by Australian firm Blackmagic Design in the form of three of its own products: a digital film camera, monitor, and recorder as well as editing and colour grading software.
The jury for the best Southeast Asian short film of the festival will be filmmakers Amir Muhammad (Malaysia), Chalida Uabumrungjit (Thailand) and Wahyuni Hadi (Singapore).
The Next New Wave award will see one of 10 shortlisted films being crowned the best Malaysian short film by the three-member jury of Jagat director Shanjhey Kumar Perumal, local actress Sharifah Amani and Thai filmmaker Aditya Assarat.
The third contest, From Wave to Wave: Student Films Competition, will again see only one film taking away the honor of being the best. Eight local student films in Malay, English, Mandarin and even Arabic will be showcased and be part of this contest.
The latter two awards do not come with prizes, the spokesman confirmed.
The festival will be in full swing from tomorrow morning until this Sunday night (May 12 - May 14) at three venues — Lostgens' Contemporary Art Space, FINDARS gallery, Checkmate Creative.
All these venues are located in the same building along Jalan Panggong, Kuala Lumpur and are just a stone's throw away from the Pasar Seni LRT station and the Maharajalela monorail station.
