PIFF Guide

Friday, Oct. 3

jeffbbz — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:12:52 +0000

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…

What I’m Watching

jeffbbz — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:05:22 +0000

Although it is already the second day of PIFF for me (and third for the fest), I thought I would post my view list so people (if any are really reading) knew what to look out for or could ask questions about specific films. I have left the numbers and time and locations as well, in case anyone at PIFF currently somehow finds this and wants to hang out with me. For those of you not at PIFF “GV” means guest visit, either the director or some actors or the producer. Also right now the info is very basic, because I just want to throw them up. If I have some time later i will add things like the non-english title and runtimes and formats and such. Or I might do that when I write a little capsule about them. We will see. For now, help yourself to these bad boys:

OCT 3
This Longing – Azharr Rudin, Malaysia
134 Megabox 3 Oct 3 10:00 134 (GV)

35 Shots of Rum – Claire Denis, France
781 Lotte Cinema 10 Oct 3 14:00 781

Madam Freedom – Han Hyung-mo, South Korea
165 Megabox 4 Oct 3 20:30 165 (GV)

OCT 4
Service – Brillante Ma. Mendoza, Philippines
302 Primus 1 Oct 4 14:00 302

TRANS#: working title – Jin, South Korea
141 Megabox 3 Oct 4 20:30 141 (GV)

OCT 5
Jerichow – Christian Petzold, Germany
063 Daeyoung Cinema 3 Oct 5 11:00 063

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly – Edwin, Indonesia
224 Megabox 6 Oct 5 13:30 224 (GV)

Frontier of Dawn – Philippe Garrel, France
557 Busan Cinema 2 Oct 5 17:00 557

Liverpool – Lisandro Alonso, Argentina
751 Lotte Cinema 8 Oct 5 21:00 751

OCT 6

Two Legged Horse – Samira Makhmalbaf, Iran
174 Megabox 4 Oct 6 10:00 174

Exhausted – Kim Gok, South Korea
442 Primus 7 Oct 6 14:00 442 (GV

The Housemaid – Kim Ki Young, South Korea
688 Lotte Cinema 5 Oct 6 16:00 688

Jalainur – Zhao Ye, China
204 Megabox 5 Oct 6 21:00 204 (GV)

OCT 7

A Christmas Tale – Arnaud Desplechin, France
611 Lotte Cinema 2 Oct 7 13:30 611

Still Walking – KOREEDA Hirokazu, Japan
026 Daeyoung Cinema 1 Oct 7 16:30 026

Nucingen Haus – Raoul Ruiz, Chile
692 Lotte Cinema 5 Oct 7 20:30 692
OCT 8
Night and Day – Hong Sang Soo, South Korea
519 Primus 10 Oct 8 14:00 519

Of Time and the City – Terence Davies, UK
685 Lotte Cinema 5 Oct8 17:30 695

Treeless Mountain – Kim So Yong, US, South Korea
476 Primus 08 Oct 8 21:00 476

OCT 9
Stuff and Dough – Cristi Puiu, Romania
644 Lotte Cinema 3 Oct 9 10:00 644

A Light in the Fog – Panahbarkhoda Rezaee, Iran
239 Megabox 6 Oct 9 14:00 239 (GV)

Hunger – Steve Mcqueen, UK, Ireland
021 Daeyoung Cinema 2 Oct 9 17:00 054

Since I am new to the Film Fest scene (I have only been to one, PIFF in 06, and that was only for two days I was a little conservative with my picks, choosing mostly ones that had already gotten good press elsewhere (especially toronto) or where names I already knew (ruiz, garrel, etc…). Still I managed to squeeze in a few world premieres and some films I have very little knowledge about.

If I have time…

jeffbbz — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:34:22 +0000

I am hoping to mildly blog the 2008 PIFF (Pusan International Film Festival) as it seems no one else in the blogosphere is really covering it (aside from lame coverage no one cares about by hollywood reporter and the like). Not that I will really have much new to relay. But still why the hell not?

As a first note, although the city of Pusan is now almost always Romanized as Busan (Which is probably the most correct way barring something wierd like Bpusan) the Film festival still uses Pusan, probably to avoid confusing foriegners and keep its name recognition and save a bunch of money changing everything. So for the sake of avoiding dumb confusion I will only be using Pusan here. If you meet me anywhere else I will probably go with Busan. But here Pusan. Yeah?

Finally, since I am doing this last minute during the actual festival, I will not be adding many fancy schamncy graphics to this blog, at least not this year. Even though I would like, I really don’t have time. I will try to upload some pictures but that depends on if I can find a PC Bang (Internet Cafe place) where I can use my laptop rather than thier computers. Peace!