PIFF Guide

Yesterday was the opening night of PIFF and probably was a star studded even and all that. However, along with being probably crowded more than death it also cost twice the price of a regular ticket (10,000KRW as opposed to 5,000KRW) (Although the dollar is surpisingly better these days you can generally guess that 1000KRW is a dollar) and therefore I decided to wait until today to begin my festival.
As I mentioned before this is only my second festival attendance and my first full length attendance, so I was exceedingly excited to get things going. Although my orginal plan was to see 25 films, I only managed to get tickets to 21 (as posted before as well). Apparently 30% of the tickets for each film are saved for the day of the show but I am not a morning person nor a line person so I may not be able to get any of those.
Today was such a case. The ticket office opens at 8:30 but I am staying about an hour away from there. Since that would have meant getting up at 7:30 at least, I slept a bit and went at 9. Since my first film was at 10 I thought I would have enough time, but that wasn’t true. After waiting 50 minutes I was less than half way to the counter and so gave up. I already had three tickets for today anyway.

Punggok rindukan bulan (This Longing) – Azzhar Rudin

Malaysia 2008 122min DV COLOR
This was the International premiere of this first full length feature by the Malaysian Azzar Rudin who was in attendance as well as producer and director in his own right Amir Muhammed (Rudin also edited Amir Muhammed’s “The Last Communist“. Unfortunately for Rudin, his premiere was marred by a technical problem in which the sound cut out momentarily every few minutes (This was a theater problem and not a problem with the tape. Viewers got a refund too! Yes!).
This Longing was a nice low budget video centered around, yep, longing. I’m not much for plot summaries, but the film is basically a musicless drama split into three parts, which are roughly like the past (although the feel is of a more dream like or story like past), the present (with new unrelated characters) and a short sequence at the end. Story is not a main concern here, rather the actions of the characters form around memory and loss, coping in what ways that they can or can’t.

Although it had its moments, I wasn’t entirely convinced by it, but I’m all for low-budget as well as formal challenges.  And as I have considered it the last few days, especially seeing some of the other films here, I am drawn to it more. I realize that to some degree shooting it on DV was probably a financial decision, but I also felt (through watching the film and talking with the director) that there was more to it than that. If I weren’t so tired I would expound upon that better. In anycase, Azzhar Rudin and Amir Muhammed and whoever else is in thier delicious malaysian film cabal are defintely to be watched out for.

Afterwards, the two fielded questions from the audience, although their answers weren’t really that informative (the questions weren’t that good either). I talked to them both afterward and Amir gave me a free copy of his collected book of funny/shocking quotes by Malaysian politicians. Some of them are hilarious and some I don’t get.

Well, unfortunately, I really need to go to bed so I can watch more films tommorow. I have more to say about this film as well as the others I have seen so far, but I don’t know if this whole blogging thing will work out. We’ll see. More later…