Thirty years on since the closure of its cinemas, Kelantan recently featured its first film festival.
Hosted at the Hokkien Huay Kuan Kelantan (Hokkien Association of Kelantan) building in the heart of the city, Pesta Filem Kota Bharu 2023 was born out of a collaboration between Amir Muhammad (Kuman Pictures), publisher Zaidi Musa (Kedai Hitam Putih), journalist/video producer Ang Wui Chong (Lollipop Productions), and a collective of independent Kelantanese filmmakers.
The festival opened with a series of documentaries featuring Kelantan’s rich mosaic of cultures on full display. The selection of films presented an ongoing conversation with the past and engagement with the present.
Hilang, a timely short about Kelantan’s bygone cinemas asks the question, “what is lost or being lost” through several interviews interspersed with sequences of hauntingly beautiful interior shots of a former cinema building long abandoned.
There were a notable several shorts directed by Ang Wui Chong, drawing from years of experience as a reporter for Sin Chiew Daily. One was a charming film celebrating the life of veteran photographer, Ooi Ah Lek (90), best known for his documentation of the 1977 Darurat (or Emergency) in Kelantan. Another, Warisan Bayangan, detailed the life of Eyo Hock Seng, Kelantan’s sole Chinese Tok Dalang still practicing and teaching Wayang Kulit in the state.
Closing Day 1 was A Queen’s Tale, an ambitious tayangan seram (horror film) surrounding Kelantanese Chinese taboos and a mysterious connection with royal lineages of old. Presented as a work-in-progress, this foray into feature-length fiction with in-house VFX (Visual Effects) hints at bigger things to come out of KB’s small but promising scene.
Day 2 of the Festival began with a series of short ‘scaries’ from the Kuman Pictures Challenge (KPC4) finalists. It was interesting seeing how the ten tayangan seram-themed finalists had inserted into their stories the mandatory prop, a football, to qualify for the contest.
Prizes were handed out after the screenings with Sathamindri, directed by Sidhaarthan taking home the grand prize of RM1,500.
Closing out the festival was Jacky Yeap’s Sometime, Sometime: a slow-burn, anti-cinematic gem of a film centered on a single-mother-and-son relationship. Lingering shots and respect for the mundane in the everyday amplified the sense of familiarity to the situations captured on film. It played up the diversity and flexibility of filmmaking in our country and region.
Sometimes, we need not turn to dramatic camera shake, heavy colour grading and an intense overture of strings to make us feel. Sometimes, it takes sitting with the seemingly unremarkable to find meaning between the awkward pauses and silence of our existence.
Both days also featured panel discussions with a diverse array of voices and visionaries from the local film scene and beyond. Among the attendees were directors Badrul Hisham Ismail (Maryam Pagi Ke Malam), Mogal Selvakannu (Don’t Rock the Boat), Jacky Yeap (Sometime, Sometime), and film lecturer Dr Norman Yusoff who also curates Wayang Budiman, a bi-weekly film-screening event in Shah Alam. These discussions offered insight into the challenges of ground-up filmmaking in and around Malaysia.
Most noteworthy was a conversation with Acehnese documentarian and film activist, Akbar Rafsanjani who candidly shed light on how Aceh’s growing film scene navigates a similar environment to that of Kelantan, being a religiously conservative province in northern Sumatra.
There had been more screenings scheduled in the original programme, however due to reasons beyond control of the organizers, some ‘screening adjustments’ had to be made for the Pesta Filem to proceed. Nevertheless, one delightful discovery that made Kelantan’s first film festival so memorable was really no different from any other any film festival deemed satisfying: the people present, the community it catalysed.
It was a privilege spending a weekend with many bright, passionate and unrelentingly kind homegrown individuals who have unwittingly set the reels in motion for Kelantan’s bright cinematic future. The eventful weekend augurs well for an interesting road ahead.
This inaugural Pesta Filem Kota Bharu reminds us that in order to make an omelet, one must break a few eggs – but when F&B authorities are ‘egg-intolerant’, then it is imperative to find other ways to deliver a fry-up.
In this case, the omelet was served and it was very satisfying. It helped that budu was widely available.
Low Weiyan is a PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University currently conducting research on Islamic future-making and technology in Malaysia.
RELATED LINKS
An earlier version of this essay in Malaysiakini.com
Pesta Filem Kota Bharu’s page on Facebook.
Amir Muhammad | Kuman Pictures
Zaidi Musa | Kedai Hitam Putih
Ang Wui Chong | Lollipop Productions
KELANTAN SHORTS
Hilang (Request for permission to view)
Kuman Pictures Challenge 4 – Finalists (Playlist)
Sometime, Sometime – Trailer
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