Southeast Asia Film & Cinema: Books

Asian cinemas are connected to global networks and participate in producing international film history while at the same time influenced and engaged by spatial, cultural, social and political transformations. This interdisciplinary study forwards a productive pairing of Asian cinemas and space, where space is used as a discursive tool to understand cinemas of Asia. Concentrating on the performative potential of cinematic space in Asian films, the contributors discuss how space (re)constructs forms of identities and meanings across a range of cinematic practices. Cities, landscapes, buildings and interiors actively shape cinematic performances of such identities and their significances. The essays are structured around the spatial themes of ephemeral, imagined and contested spaces. They deal with struggles for identity, belonging, autonomy and mobility within different national and transnational contexts across East, Southeast and parts of South Asia in particular, which are complicated by micropolitics and subcultures, and by the interventions and interests of global lobbies.

This book explores the range and dynamism of contemporary Asian cinemas, covering East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan), Southeast Asia (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia), South Asia (Bollywood), and West Asia (Iran), in order to discover what is common about them and to engender a theory or concept of "Asian Cinema". It goes beyond existing work which provides a field survey of Asian cinema, probing more deeply into the field of Asian Cinema, arguing that Asian Cinema constitutes a separate pedagogical subject, and putting forward an alternative cinematic paradigm. The book covers "styles", including the works of classical Asian Cinema masters, and specific genres such as horror films, and Bollywood and Anime, two very popular modes of Asian Cinema; "spaces", including artistic use of space and perspective in Chinese cinema, geographic and personal space in Iranian cinema, the private "erotic space" of films from South Korea and Thailand, and the persistence of the family unit in the urban spaces of Asian big cities in many Asian films; and "concepts" such as Pan-Asianism, Orientalism, Nationalism and Third Cinema. The rise of Asian nations on the world stage has been coupled with a growing interest, both inside and outside Asia, of Asian culture, of which film is increasingly an indispensable component - this book provides a rich, insightful overview of what exactly constitutes Asian Cinema.

..". an important collective work for communication practitioners, students, and scholars who want to have a deeper understanding of film making in Asia and of the promotion of nationalism through communication." Media Asia ..". a momentous contribution to the study of colonialism and postcoloniality in Asia... " The Journal of Asian Studies "This is an excellent model for studies in how the popular, art, and experimental cinemas function in the consideration of nationhood as a configuration of symbols.... This anthology provides an interesting discussion by offering a theoretical framework from which to examine the complex topics of nation, state, identity formation, and collective history in the realm of cinema. It becomes an even more effective tool by playing itself out within a diverse Asian context." Afterimage Essays examine the representation of the interlocking discourses of nationhood and history in Asian cinema, dealing with film traditions in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Australia."

East-West Encounters: Franco-Asian Cinema and Literature is the first book of its kind to examine Franco-Asian film and literary productions in the context of France's postcolonial history. It covers French film-makers' approaches to the Asian 'Other', as well as focusing on the works of Vietnamese and Cambodian directors living and working in France. The book thus examines this important contemporary example of cultural exchange and establishes a dialogue between producers and consumers of exoticised images. It features extensive studies of key texts such as Emmanuelle, Indochine, The Scent of Green Papaya and Cyclo.

This work discusses contemporary film in all the countries of southeast Asia, exploring how films of different genres represent interventions in social issues and conflicts. It examines the social practices and ideologies which films textualise and oppose themselves to.

Since the late 1990s, a vivid new sphere of cinematic practice in Southeast Asia has emerged and been identified as independent. What exactly does this term mean in relation to the way films and videos are made, and the way they look? How do issues of festival circulation, piracy, technology, state and institutional power, and spectatorship apply to practices of independent cinema throughout the diverse region? The authors who speak in this volume-contemporary filmmakers, critics, curators, festival organizers-answer these questions.

The rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia and the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers in the region are among the most significant recent developments in global cinema. A new micro-cinema has allowed small production teams working with small budgets to produce innovative films that have been shown at festivals around the world, where they have garnered positive reviews and won awards.
In Southeast Asian Independent Cinema, the authors document these developments, arguing that they are a genuine outcome of the democratization and liberalization of film production. Contributions from respected scholars, interviews with filmakers, personal accounts and primary sources by important directors and screenwriters collectively provide readers with a lively account of dynamic film developments in Southeast Asian. Interviewees include Lav Diaz, Amir Muhammad, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Eric Khoo, Garin Nugroho, Nia Dinata and others.

Transnational Memory and Popular Culture in Southeast Asia explores the significance of transnational popular culture in the formation and mediation of collective memories across the region. It looks at case studies including: the politics of cinematic remembering of Hong Kong films on Southeast Asia, the digital and holographic enshrinement of departed celebrities like Wong Kar Kui, Bruce Lee and Teresa Teng and the dredging of personal memories of the encounters with the Korean Wave in Singapore. Contrary to the assumptions of the importance of newness in modern popular culture productions, the continued relevance of this otherwise dated material reflects the significance of these texts in the development and strengthening of collective cultural memories. The discussion of such issues has often been grounded geo-spatially on the national and contemporary contexts, this volume will develop a more temporalized and transnational perspective in the shaping of otherwise local cultural identifications."

ind out what it's like to put together the first film festival in Cambodia since the end of the Khmer Rouge regime - CamboFest, Cambodia Film and Video Festival - and all on an indie, crowdfunded shoestring! This 4th edition post-festival report offers incredible first hand insights and an overview of the challenges and achievements regarding Cambodia's first internationally recognized film festival since end of the Khmer Rouge era (established 2007/2550)
Written by festival founder and co-organizer, media producer Jason Rosette of Camerado SE Asia. Produced by Camerado Movies and Media, working in Asia and the USA - http://www.camerado.com

Indonesia has a long and rich tradition of homosexual and transgender cultures, and the past 40 years in particular has seen an increased visibility of sexual minorities in the country, which has been reflected through film and popular culture. This book examines how representations of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals and communities have developed in Indonesian cinema during this period. The book first explores Indonesian engagement with waria (male-to-female transgender) identities and the emerging representation of gay and lesbi Indonesians during Suharto's New Order regime (1966-98), before going on to the reimagining of these positions following the fall of the New Order, a period which saw the rebirth of the film industry with a new generation of directors, producers and actors. Using original interview research and focus groups with gay, lesbi and waria identified Indonesians, alongside the films themselves and a wealth of archival sources, the book contrasts the ways in which transgendered lives are actually lived with their representations on screen.

Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture critically examines what media and screen culture reveal about the ways urban-based Indonesians attempted to redefine their identity in the first decade of this century. Through a richly nuanced analysis of expressions and representations found in screen culture (cinema, television and social media), it analyses the waves of energy and optimism, and the disillusionment, disorientation and despair, that arose in the power vacuum that followed the dramatic collapse of the militaristic New Order government.
While in-depth analyses of identity and political contestation within the nation are the focus of the book, trans-national engagements and global dimensions are a significant part of the story in each chapter. The author focuses on contemporary cultural politics in Indonesia, but each chapter contextualizes current circumstances by setting them within a broader historical perspective.

A film-goer accustomed to the typical Hollywood movie plot would feel uneasy watching an Indonesian movie. Contrary to expectations, good guys do not win, bad guys are not punished, and individuals do not reach a new self-awareness. Instead, by the end of the movie order is restored, bad guys are converted, and families are reunited. Like American movies, Indonesian films reflect the understandings and concerns of the culture and era in which they are made. Thus Indonesian preoccupations with order and harmony, national unity, and modernization motivate the plots of many films. Cinema has not traditionally been within the purview of anthropologists, but Karl Heider demonstrates how Indonesian movies are profoundly Indonesian. Produced in the national language by Indonesians from various regions, the films are intended for audiences across the diverse archipelago. Heider examines these films to identify pan-Indonesian cultural patterns and to show how these cultural principles shape the movies and, sometimes, how the movies influence the culture. This anthropological approach to Indonesian film opens up the medium of Asian cinema to a new group of scholars. "Indonesian Cinema" should be of interest to social scientists, Asianists, film scholars, and anyone concerned with the role of popular culture in developing countries.

While Indonesia's film industry has experienced a rapid growth and diversification since the end of Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime in 1998, these developments have received only little academic attention. Especially the role of women filmmakers, who have played an important part in shaping contemporary Indonesian cinema and constantly add new perspectives to it, has been widely overlooked. The contributions to this volume analyse films directed and produced by some of the most visible women in post-New Order Indonesian cinema in terms of their specific aesthetics and narrative styles as well as the socio-political issues they deal with. The authors further explore women filmmakers' attitudes towards feminism, highlighting how the particular Indonesian context causes some of them to describe their approach as a "women's perspective" rather than a feminist one. In addition to the scholarly contributions, interviews with Indonesian women filmmakers from different genres provide insights into their perspectives on gender issues and their individual experiences as women in the male-dominated film industry. With contributions by Novi Kurnia, Olin Monteiro, Intan Paramaditha, Ekky Imanjaya, Diani Citra, Wiwik Sushartami, Jan Budweg, Sofia Setyorini, and Yvonne Michalik.

Winner of the 2008 Benda Prize Originating in 1891 in the port city of Surabaya, the Komedie Stamboel, or Istanbul-style theater, toured colonial Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by rail and steamship. The company performed musical versions of the Arabian Nights, European fairy tales and operas such as Sleeping Beauty and Aida, as well as Indian and Persian romances, Southeast Asian chronicles, true crime stories, and political allegories. The actors were primarily Eurasians, the original backers were Chinese, and audiences were made up of all races and classes. The Komedie Stamboel explores how this new hybrid theater pointed toward possibilities for the transformation of self in a colonial society and sparked debates on moral behavior and mixed-race politics. While audiences marveled at spectacles involving white-skinned actors, there were also racial frictions between actors and financiers, sexual scandals, fights among actors and patrons, bankruptcies, imprisonments, and a murder. Matthew Isaac Cohen's evocative social history situates the Komedie Stamboel in the culture of empire and in late nineteenth-century itinerant entertainment. He shows how the theater was used as a symbol of cross-ethnic integration in postcolonial Indonesia and as an emblem of Eurasian cultural accomplishment by Indische Nederlanders. A pioneering study of nineteenth-century Southeast Asian popular culture, The Komedie Stamboel gives a new picture of the region's arts and culture and explores the interplay of currents in global culture, theatrical innovation, and movement in colonial Indonesia.ABOUT THE AUTHOR---Matthew Isaac Cohen is senior lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway University of London. His articles on Southeast Asian performance have appeared in New Theatre Quarterly, Asian Theatre Journal, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and Archipel. As a practicing shadow puppeteer, he has performed in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Although Filipino cinema dates to the early silent era and shares many characteristics with Western film, it has frequently been ignored by Western critics and audiences. This book offers a rare study of cinema in the Philippines. The first half of the work presents a history. Chapters cover lost pre-World War II films, the postwar cinema boom, the Philippines' unique relationship with the United States and its manifestation on film, and Filipino cinema's decline. The second half of the book is the most comprehensive published filmography of Filipino cinema to date.

Philippine cinema, the dream factory of the former U.S. colony, teems with American figures and plots. Local movies feature GIs seeking Filipina brides, cold war spies hunting down native warlords, and American-born Filipinos wandering in the parental homeland. The American landscape furnishes the settings for the triumphs and tragedies of Filipino nurses, GI babies, and migrant workers. By tracking American fantasies in Philippine movies from the postindependence period to the present, José B. Capino offers an innovative account of cinema's cultural work in decolonization and globalization. Capino examines how a third world nation's daydreams both articulate empire and mobilize against it, provide imaginary maps and fables of identity for its migrant workers and diasporan subjects, pose challenges to the alibis of patriarchy and nationalism, and open up paths for participating in the cultures of globality. Through close readings of more than twenty Philippine movies, Capino demonstrates the postcolonial imagination's vital role in generating pragmatic and utopian visions of living with empire. Illuminating an important but understudied cinema, he creates a model for understanding the U.S. image in the third world.

An anthology of essays about Philippine cinema which seeks to illuminate issues of transparency of power and power relations. It lays bare the geopolitics of the visible in order to render the almost invisible working operation that makes both visibility and invisibility possible.

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Film censorship has always been a controversial matter, particularly in jurisdictions with restrictive state-based censorship systems. This book reviews the film censorship system in the Asia-Pacific by comparing the systems used in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia. It identifies the key issues and concerns that arise from the design and implementation of the system by examining the censorship laws, policies, guidelines and processes. The book evaluates film practitioners' and censors' opinion of, and experience in, dealing with those issues, and goes on to develop reform proposals for the film censorship system.

This monograph departs from traditional studies of national cinema by accentuating the intercultural and intertextual links between Malaysian films and Asian (as well as European and American) film practices. Using cross-cultural analysis, the author characterizes Malaysia as a pluralist society consisting of a multiplicity of cultural identities. Malaysian film reflects this remarkable heterogeneity, particularly evident in the impact of the Indian and Hong Kong cinema. Detailed analyses of a selection of Malaysian films highlight their cultural complexities, while noting the tension between cultural inclusivity and ethnic exclusivity at the heart of this cinema.

In the early 1990s, the animist and Hindu traces in adat, or Malay custom, became contentious for resurgent Islam in Malaysia. Reclaiming Adat focuses on the filmmakers, intellectuals, and writers who reclaimed adat to counter the homogenizing aspects of both Islamic discourse and globalization in this period. They practised their project of recuperation with an emphasis on sexuality and a return to archaic forms such as magic and traditional healing. Using close textual readings of literature and film, Khoo Gaik Cheng reveals the tensions between gender, modernity, and nation. Khoo weaves a wealth of cultural theory into a rare analysis of Malay cinema and the work of new Malaysian anglophone writers. Reclaiming Adat makes an essential contribution to our knowledge of the complexities embedded in modern Malaysian culture, politics, and identity. The book will be a useful source for students interested in postcolonial film and literature, Asian culture, and gender studies, as well as the general reader keen to learn about contemporary Malaysia.

During periods of official nationalism in Thailand, the Thai media played a significant role in promoting government policy. Once the media was opened up in 1997, the patterns of ownership started to change. The media began to change from a government orientated enterprise towards a market- orientated private enterprise. This book investigates the interaction between media and nationalism in Thailand. It looks at the relationship between media owners and political leaders in general. Although the primary motive of film-making may now be turning a profit, films which aim to promote the nationalism or political agendas still exist. Thai filmmakers are either making the film according to the culture of those classes to strengthen the nationalistic awareness from the audiences, or they are using their medium to persuade the audiences to accept their values. Either way, it can be demonstrated that since the end of the period of official nationalism, nationalism is still promoted through film. This media support of political agendas can be seen as the new style to promote nationalism.

Latent Images: Film in Singapore, first published in 2000, is the pioneer reference of Singapore cinema. This extensively updated edition with new illustrations presents a comprehensive examination of the country's film landscape from the early days of local film production up until the end of 2007. The wealth of material is clearly written and organized for quick and easy reference.
This edition presents new discoveries on the city's film history, which throw fresh light on its earliest feature productions. The update of Singapore film production between 2000 and 2007 discusses over 50 new features. New chapters investigate Singapore cinema in its regional and wider contexts; short film production and its impact on the development of filmmaking in the country; the role of censorship and film classification. New interviews with industry professionals and filmmakers are included, while expanded appendices provide quick reference to bio-filmographies of important Singapore filmmakers; the Singapore International Film Festival statistics and awards; and a comprehensive list of films produced in Singapore between 1927 and 2007.