HAF PROFILES


Hangman Dir Jakrawal Nilthamrong, Ionut Piturescu Countries of origin Thailand-Denmark-Romania


One of two projects at this year’s HAF to come out of the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival’s DOX:LAB 2011 — which pairs European and non-Euro- pean film-makers — Hangman is a semi documentary film made up of six short stories about death and disas- ter, to be directed by Thailand’s Jakrawal Nilthamrong and Romania’s Ionut Piturescu. “We discovered the cultural and stylistic differences


between us cause a kind of inspiration friction,” says Piturescu, whose documentary credits include Balkan Love Story and Seize The Time. He also won the 2010 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight award for his short Quest. An art-school graduate whose latest short film,


Immortal Woman, was selected for the Tiger Awards competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011, Nilthamrong says he and his co-director were inspired by the bloodshed during the recent political unrest in Bangkok and the floods which affected the cen- tral part of the country. The film will include segments focusing on Thailand’s


last executioner, local farmers from Cambodia whose lives were affected by the floods and a group of refugees struggling to survive on the Thailand/Cambodia border. In pre-production with plans to shoot in Thailand,


Hangman is a co-production between Thailand’s Extra Virgin (the company with which Nilthamrong works), Romania’s Anthropoesis (with which Piturescu works), and DOX:LAB, the initiator of the project which has put up $17,000. Pimpaka Towira, founder of Bangkok-based produc-


tion company Extra Virgin, is attached to produce. Her credits include Nilthamrong’s Unreal Forest which came out of the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s 2010 Forget Africa programme, and Uruphong Raksasad’s award-winning Agrarian Utopia. The team will be at HAF looking for funds, co-produc- ers and sales agents for Hangman.


Jean Noh Hangman


Budget $100,000 Finance raised to date $17,000 from a DOX:LAB grant Contact Patricia Drati


patricia@cphdox.dk (Un)Making The Betrayal


Budget $243,000 Finance raised to date $43,000 from the Asian Cinema Fund, the Jan Vrijman Fund and private funds Contact Nandita Solomon


Music And The Nation


Budget $1m Finance raised to date None Contact Wong Suet-lee, Beautiful Productions beautiful.prods@gmail.com


nansolo@gmail.com March 20, 2012 Screen International at Filmart 15 n


(Un)Making The Betrayal Dir Dain Said Countries of origin Indonesia-Malaysia


Malaysian film-maker Dain Said was not put off direct- ing by the fact his controversial, violent debut Dukun was banned from release. His second feature, Bunohan, went on to world premiere at Toronto last year, where it was praised for its elegant visuals and gritty action; it was picked up internationally by Universal Pictures. Said’s next project is a documentary that aims to


deconstruct the consequences of Indonesian propa- ganda film The Betrayal, which was commissioned by the country’s president, General Suharto, in the 1980s to justify the millions of Indonesians who were massacred following his 1965 coup. Said was inspired during a Nippon Foundation fel-


lowship in 2007, as he researched the historical role of films and propaganda in Indonesia. A graduate of the University of Westminster in London, he also tackled the 1965 era in his final year project Surabaya Johnny, which screened at the London Film Festival in 1989. The new film will feature interviews with ordinary


people whose lives were affected by The Betrayal, using footage which Said salvaged from a Jakarta film studio backlot. “What the Indonesian people went through in their


history was terribly painful. That a film was made to jus- tify a regime’s brutality just goes to show how powerful film as a communication medium became in the 20th century, the world over,” explains Nandita Solomon, who is producing the documentary through Apparat, the company she set up with Said in 2009. (Un)Making The Betrayal has received grants from


Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund and the Netherlands’ Jan Vrijman Fund and was part of last year’s Asian-Euro- pean training programme for documentary film-makers, Crossing Borders. Currently in pre-production, Said and Solomon will be at HAF seeking funds, co-producers, sales agents and pre-sales.


Jean Noh


Music And The Nation Dir Cheung King-wai Country of origin Hong Kong


One of Hong Kong’s leading documentary film-makers, Cheung has selected Chinese pipa master Fang Jinlong and his all-female band, Sweet Eighteen, as the subject of his upcoming film. Like many mainland Chinese musicians, Fang used to


play in a military band where he had no creative freedom but did not have to worry about pay. Now that he has to adapt to capitalist China, he encourages his girls to wear sexy outfits but finds it is still not easy to survive. “Money and art are like tango partners and that’s just


as true for documentaries as it is for music,” says Che- ung, who was a cellist before he turned to film-making. “I just want to objectively observe how the economic reforms in China are affecting the Chinese people.” Cheung’s documentary credits include KJ: Music And


Life, about a piano prodigy, which won three prizes at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards and played for eight months in Hong Kong. His last film, One Nation, Two Cities, about mainland immigrants, premiered at last year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival and opened in Hong Kong theatres on March 16. Cheung has already been following Fang and his band


for two years and says he needs another year or two to complete the film. The $1m budget is high by the stand- ards of Hong Kong documentaries because he is follow- ing several people across different locations. Cheung also aims to use multiple Red cameras and high-quality sound recording. However, he believes the budget is justified as he is


aiming for a theatrical release in both China and Hong Kong. Cheung describes the film as an “ordinary person epic” with commercial appeal, rather than a political cri- tique that could have censorship problems on the main- land. “Chinese people will find themselves in this film,” he says.


Liz Shackleton


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