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'Joni' lures young viewers at Vesoul
(The Jakarta Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)from THE JAKARTA POST -- SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2006 -- PAGE 17 Amidst serious fiction, documentary and children's films in this year's edition of the Asian Film Festival, the European premiere of Indonesian Joko Anwar's light-hearted comedy Janji Joni (Joni's promise) greatly amused young French spectators in Vesoul, eastern France
"It was very interesting to see how young people in the capital Jakarta appreciate cinema as we have no idea what life there is like. Particularly funny was Joni's categorizing film spectators into ten sorts!," said Marion, a pupil at Lycee Voltaire in the large town of Orleans, 150 kilometers south of Paris, who came with her cinema group for the weekend discussion
When one teacher, Sandrine Leturcq, pointed out how much English slang was interspersed in the dialogues, another pupil countered that much the same was true about French film titles and expressions. Other pupils were disappointed that director Joko could not make it at the last minute, as they had questions they wanted to ask him
Some of the highlights of the festival are an award accorded by youngsters and a prize voted by public ballot after each film season
An interesting novelty in the festival, which runs from Jan. 31 through Feb. 7, was a Sunday luncheon on Feb. 5 held in the big tent next to the Majestic multiplex. Attended by members of the public, film critics and film directors, it furthered intense discussion among festival visitors and participants
This year, Indian film director Buddhadeb Desgupta from Bengal headed the international jury, and the 2006 festival featured a special focus on documentaries and fiction films directed by women, together with a retrospective of movies from Uzbekistan
There was also a homage to renowned Taiwanese film director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, an exponent of nouvelle vague, whose films have won awards at the Cannes and Venice film festivals
In an interview, Desgupta said that his films do not require large amounts of money to produce -- only about 1 percent of an average Bollywood production -- so that financing them was not too difficult
Furthermore, he explained to The Jakarta Post: "I am lucky because I have a very faithful public, almost a captive audience because my films are in Bengali and can reach out to a large segment of the Indian population. More of a problem in India is finding alternative cinemas in which to show them. That network is underdeveloped, not like here in France, for example." Among the documentaries made by women, Ditso Carolino from the Philippines revealed the atrocious conditions of youth detention centers in Bunso The Youngest. The documentary focuses on juvenile prisoners who have to share cells with hardened adult murderers and rapists
Libano-French Milka Assaf entered a moving documentary about the aftermath of the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Six months after the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, she showed how women and children were attempting to rebuild their future
Yemenite woman filmmaker Khadija al-Salami presented the documentary A Stranger in Her Town, which went on to win the Youth Award with her story of 13-year-old Najmia, who lives in a carefree way in the old town of Sanaa. The vivacious Najmia defies centuries of ancestral traditions and refuses to wear a veil
The awards were announced on Tuesday evening, followed by the screening of Mr. and Mrs. Iyer by Indian woman director Aparna Sen
The Golden Cyclo award, sponsored by the Region of Franche-Comte, was unanimously accorded by the international jury to Chinese-Korean fiction film Grain in Ear from director Zhang Lu. The highly sensitive portrayal of the difficult life of the Korean minority in China features the trials and tribulations of unmarried mother Cui Shun-ji, who earns a living for herself and her son by selling kimchi on her tricycle. The film ends with a heart-rending tragedy
The same jury, comprising Korean Jeon Soo-Il, Frenchwoman Stephane Lagarde and Italian Luisa Prudentino, awarded the International Jury's Grand Prize to Uzbek filmmaker Yousoup Razykov for Erkak/The Guardian, which they considered a lyrical depiction of the reality of life in Uzbek today. In it, 13-year-old Djamchid is forced to look after his young sister-in-law when his brother goes to work abroad
The Netpac (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Award, represented by Sri Lankan Ashley Ratnavibhusan, Italian Italo Spinelli and Frenchman Yves Thoraval, chose Gilanah by Iranian woman director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and co-directed by director Moshen Abdolvahab because of its powerful anti-war statement. It depicts the painful relationship between a courageous mother, played superbly by Fatemeh Mohamed Arya, and her son who is left handicapped by the Iraq-Iran war
Bani-Etemad also showed another eloquent film in the Focus on Women category. Under the Skin of the City was banned for four years in Iran before being allowed distribution and release in 2000. Providing a portrayal of life in modern Teheran with all its restrictions and problems, it centers around a family struggling to survive while women begin to assert their rights
Both the Guimet Museum Special Favorite Award and the National Institute of Oriental Languages Special Award went to Nisshabd (Touching Silence), a debut feature film by Indian documentarian Jahar Kanungo. The film is a philosophical and poetic reflection on sound, rhythm and search of the self. Suddenly afflicted by hyper-sensitivity to sound, its Delhi-based male protagonist returns to his native village in Bengal
The Emile Guimet Award, granted by the Friends of National Museum for Asian Arts in Paris, went to Full or Empty directed by Iranian Abolfazi Jalili, whose films have never been shown in Iran
The jury of the Inalco (National Institute of Oriental Languages) Award, like the Emile Guimet jury, awarded their main prize to Jalili's story about how 17-year-old Navid Raisi leaves his village to apply for a job as a Persian literature teacher and finds work as a day laborer in the interim. He finds out that the woman he loves is also applying for the same position, so they play the game "Full or Empty" to decide who should get it
Jalili said: "I think that for lonely human beings today, two things are most important -- love and hope. Full or Empty is the story of a young man who seeks victory with all his love." Last, but not least, Stepnoi Express by Amanzhol Aitouarov of Kazakhstan won the general viewers' vote. The film is a witty, but melancholic film about a young girl, Saoule, who lives with her railway guard father beside the railroad, lost in the midst of the vast Kazakh steppes, surrounded by expert horsemen. By accident, Etienne, a young traveling Frenchman, is stranded here and gradually falls in love with Saoule, who dreams of visiting Paris. Her dream is fulfilled, but at the expense of losing ties with her father and homeland
The Vesoul festival was founded 12 years ago by Martine and Jean-Marc Therouanne, and it is one of about four of its kind in France. For them, Asia ranges from the Far East as far afield as Turkey and Iran. The festival is now an important part of the cultural life of the region surrounding Vesoul and aims at informing the general public, including schoolchildren, about Asia's film industry
Kunang Helmi, Contributor, Vesoul, France Copyright 2006 The Jakarta Post
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