The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Memories keep vanished Cambodian films alive Posted: 15 Oct 2011 05:55 AM PDT  Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou at the 16th Busan International Film Festival on Ocotober 8, 2011. – AFP pic "The Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in 1975 and the film industry just simply vanished," says Chou. "But the wonderful thing to me was that everywhere I went, people would remember the movies. They had passed these stories down from generation to generation." The 28-year-old French-Cambodian was drawn into the story through a family connection. His grandfather Van Chann was a film producer in the 1960s and 70s, a time when the Cambodian film industry thrived. When Chou decided to become a filmmaker in his early 20s he also began digging into the past. The fruits of his labours can be found in the documentary "Golden Slumbers", which had its world premiere this week at the 16th Busan International Film Festival, where it is competing for the main documentary prize. Chou made his first trip back to Cambodia in 2008. His family had escaped the Khmer Rouge regime, which wiped out up to two million people through starvation, overwork and execution, by moving to France. His grandfather never made another film after 1975. But through family connections and the help of the Internet, Chou was able to piece together what remained of the industry in Cambodia. From the shadows came directors, actors and film fans, and in "Golden Slumbers" they walk Chou – and his audience – back through time. "Most of the people had lost contact with each other completely," says Chou. "Filmmaking was outlawed under the Khmer (Rouge) regime and the directors, producers, actors – they all were either killed or left the country or moved on to other things. Films were totally forbidden." Chou's film, through testimony of the likes of charismatic former director Ly Bun Yim, shows that in the early 1970s the Cambodian film industry was thriving. By the time the Khmer Rouge forces took Phnom Penh in 1975 the industry was producing more than 20 films a year – romances, the re-telling of old legends, all with the unique sounds of Cambodian pop music pulsing away in the background. Chou interviews ordinary people who describe how the population gathered in cinemas to watch the latest movies – even as the fighting raged. Chou finds that one ancient, dilapidated movie theatre in Phnom Penh has become home to hundreds of impoverished squatter families and that the old people there still tell children stories plucked from memories of what they saw on the silver screen. "For so many of these people the movies are very much alive, even though they had not seen them for decades," says Chou. "They knew the plots, the actors and the complete story lines." It remains unknown whether the Khmer Rouge actively set about destroying the prints of the estimated 400 Cambodian films that existed until 1975. – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Depp prevails with ‘The Lone Ranger’ Posted: 15 Oct 2011 02:29 AM PDT  Director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp. – AFP pic Based on the 1950s American television show, the story revolves around a masked Texas lawman who fights crime on his white horse Silver with his Native American assistant Tonto. The film has set a May 31, 2013 release date, according to The Hollywood Reporter, delayed after budget negotiations. The original budget of US$250 million (RM781.25 million) was cut, reducing hefty multi-million-dollar fees and other costs, such as some special effects. It will costar Armie Hammer (The Social Network and upcoming Snow White) and Tom Wilkinson (The Ghost Writer) with producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean). "I think I have interesting plans for the character, and I think the film itself could be entertaining and very funny," Depp told MTV. "But also I like the idea of having the opportunity to make fun of the idea of the Indian as a sidekick... the Native American has always been a second-class, third-class, fourth-class citizen, and I don't see Tonto that way at all. So it's an opportunity for me to salute Native Americans." Shooting will begin in February in New Mexico. Depp's next film, The Rum Diary, releases October 28 in North America and in November in the UK, France, Singapore, Sweden and other countries, followed by a roll-out worldwide. The actor will also appear in Scorsese's fantasy Hugo (November 23), crime action film 21 Jump Street (March 16, 2012) and Tim Burton's vampire mystery Dark Shadows (May 11, 2011). – AFP Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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