Berlin feiert Asiatisches Filmfestival mit Themenschwerpunkt Indonesien

Freunde des indonesischen Films können sich auf das Asian Hot Shots Filmfestival 2009 im Kino Babylon Berlin Mitte freuen:

Vom 13. bis 18. Januar steht Indonesien im Mittelpunkt des Festivals, das jungen Filmemachern aus Asien eine Plattform für ihre Produktionen in Europa bietet. Die Veranstalter geben in ihrem diesjährigen Schwerpunkt einen Überblick über die Entwicklung des unabhängigen Films in Indonesien. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei das „New Indonesien Cinema“, das sich nach dem Niedergang des Suharto Regimes frei entfalten konnte.

Als „Bindeglied zwischen der alten und neuen Ära“ gilt der Filmemacher Garin Nugroho, der unter anderem Träger eines Filmpreises
der Berlinale ist und mit seinem mehrfach ausgezeichneten Film Leaf on a Pillow („Daun di atas Bantal“) von 1997 – einer der international meist beachteten indonesischen Filme – vertreten sein wird. Nugroho entwirft in seinem Film über Straßenkinder in der
zentraljavanischen Stadt Yogyakarta ein sozialkritisches Bild der indonesischen Gesellschaft der späten 90er Jahre. Die Straßenverkäuferin Asih, selbst von ihrem Mann ausgenutzt, übernimmt die Rolle der Mutter für einen Haufen verwahrloster Straßenkinder in Yogyakarta. Christine Hakim bekam für ihre Darstellung der Asih den Preis für die beste schauspielerische Leistung auf dem Asia- Pacific Filmfestival 1998. Im selben Jahr wurde Leaf on a Pillow auf dem Filmfestival in Cannes gezeigt.

Leaf on a Pillow schaufelte den Weg frei für neue, unabhängige und sozialkritische Produktionen. Kuldesak, eine Zusammenstellung von
vier Geschichten aus dem Großstadtmoloch Jakarta, wird als Grundstein für die Entwicklung des unabhängigen Films in Indonesien
betrachtet: Nan T. Achnas, Mira Lesmana, Riri Riza und Rizal Mantovani, die Kuldesak produzierten, gehören heute zu den bekanntesten
und erfolgreichsten Filmemachern des Landes. Mit Love Potpourri („Cinta Setaman“, von Harry Dagoe Suharyadi), They call me Monkey („Mereka Bilang, Saya Monyet!“, von Djenar Maesa Ayu) und Claudia/Jasmine (von Awi Suryadi), alle drei aus dem Jahr 2008, erhalten drei sehr junge Produktionen einen Platz im Festivalprogramm. Die Filme kreisen auf sehr unterschiedliche Weise immer wieder um die gleichen Themen: die unerfüllte Sehnsucht von Menschen nach Liebe und Schutz in der Familie; der Kampf ums Überleben in der rauen und brutalen Wirklichkeit der Metropole; die Gegensätze zwischen traditionellen Werten und dem Rausch, der den Kampf ums Überleben in der Großstadt vergessen macht – Gegensätze, an denen vor allem junge Menschen zerbrechen.

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Neben Produktionen aus Indonesien stehen junge Filme aus China, Japan, Singapur, Indien, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, den Philippinen
und Korea auf dem Programm. In eigenen Themenbereichen sind Spiel- und Dokumentarfilme, Kurzfilme und schwul-lesbische Filme vertreten. Ergänzt wird das Festival durch asiatische Videokunst- Installationen in Ausstellungsräumen in der Nähe des Festivalkinos.
Weitere Events rund um das eigentliche Festivalprogramm sind die Festivalparty, unter anderem mit der japanischen Band THEE 50′S
HIGHTEENS, Panels und Podiumsdiskussionen sowie zahlreiche begleitende Workshops.
Außerdem werden auch in diesem Jahr wieder die vier besten Filme mit einem Green Chili Award ausgezeichnet und ein Sonderpreis
wird für einen Film mit „herausragender interkultureller Verbindung zwischen Europa und Asien“ vergeben.

Mehr Informationen unter:
www.asianhotshotsfestival.com
Eventsbabylon berlin:mitte
Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 30, 10178 Berlin
Info: +49-(0)30-2425 969; Büro: 24727-801;
Fax: 24727-800; www.babylonberlin.de
U2, Tram M8 und Bus 240, Rosa-Luxemburg Platz

Z-Bar: Z-inema
Bergstraße 2, 10115 Berlin
Info: +49-(0)30-283 89 121, www.z-bar.de
U8 Rosenthaler Platz, S1 Nordbahnhof

Grüner Salon
Linienstraße 227, 10178 Berlin
Info: +49-(0)30-285 989-36, Fax: 285 989-37,
www.gruener-salon.de
U2, Tram M8 und Bus 240;
Rosa-Luxemburg Platz

Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia Berlin, Germany ‐ Education Section
E‐mail:education at indonesian‐embassy.de
Berlin feiert Asiatisches Filmfestival mit Themenschwerpunkt Indonesien

Happy New Year

welcome to the year of the rat – who knows, we might actually get around to write something once in a while again….

 b.

Congratulations…

…to the last of the class 1995, which is graduating today to become “Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence”. Well done! He never gave up, and finally got what he was working on for so long. I am proud of him. Too bad I can’t be there today, but hopefully many of my former classmates will make it, and give him the farewell that he deserves!

b.

The meaning of “nothing”

A while ago, our internet provider has, as is normal these days, merged/been bought/acquired/made a deal with (delete as appropriate) one of the largest DSL providers in the country. The result was that I paid a third of the price for a better connection. In the letter (one of the few REAL letters that I ever got from that company – let me call it Web.de) it stated that

• Everything around my DSL account would be moved to the new provider (let us call him 1&1)
• included in the deal was – among other things – a free domain
• I had to do absolutely nothing, as everything would be taken care by them

The few people that tried to access our domain, or send us an eMail the last few days might have noticed that the domain was unreachable, and that mails bounced back. The reason for this was that I had failed to pay for the domain name – apparently I had been sent a bill (to a more or less defunct mail account which only received SPAM from web.de every few days, so whenever I went to check my first action was to delete all web.de mail in one go – one of the features of the account was that it was impossible to opt out of the (internal) SPAM) which I failed to read, and pay. The fact that I had neither signed any new contract, or that they used to have my bank details did not really matter to them. In fact, when I asked why they did not just take it off my account, they said that they gave all my account info to the new provider, and that’s why they would not have it – they must have found my address by employing a psychic, as the address clearly is also part of any “contract data” they would have passed on. And if they kept my address, then why not the bank details? Might it be that I actually never agreed to pay for any domain name, which, according to the old contract, and the letter they sent me, was part of the DSL deal?

Anyways, I am contemplating whether I should get a lawyer and see whether I can sue them for unfair competition or something like that. I am sure that there are more people like me, that got screwed over by them. Maybe it all depends on the meaning of “absolutely nothing”. Any thoughts?

b.

My sons best friend

I want to introduce my son’s first friend to you – he is now 6 weeks old, so his vocabulary is rather limited and consists mainly of “coo” and “aeh aeh”, but he does talk already (yeah, we do have a super child. I expect him to ask for his first playstation any day now). One should think that he likes to converse with his parents, but in fact his most trusted friend is more of the quiet, almost regal type. He does not talk much, and neither does it move. He is however rather pleasing as he engulfs our son in a warmth that he otherwise only finds in the arms of his parents. He is always there when our son is changed or cleaned, a most trusted someone. If you want to know who this friend is, click here.

Multi tasking

You know they say that woman is naturally gifted with the ability to do several things at the same time i.e. multi tasking. Let that be cooking dinner while talking on the phone (and not burning the food, that is..), putting on mascara while driving (some women can do it apparently..), or in my case now, taking care of my son while doing other things around the house like doing laundry, making lunch, ironing, cleaning and the list goes. You might think this is not such a hard work since as I said before, we, the women, are already ‘blessed’ by the power to do several things instantly. But as I experienced it, it was not as easy as I thought, especially when the baby cries or when he moves his body so much while you have him in your arm that it was impossible to divide your attention to something else other than to him.

As I am in my 5th going 6th week of being a mother, I learn more that there are reasons why my baby wants my attention. As a friend rightly pointed out, my little one is too small to think that he should ‘annoy’ me for fun, for example by screaming for no reason. There are days though where I do get annoyed. I blamed them on the lack of food, sleep and rest, and I do feel terrible afterwards for feeling that my little one is trying to test my limit to the very end. I am learning to always be patient, which is hard sometime when you have already tried all the possible things to make your baby content by feeding, washing, changing, singing, carrying him in your arms for hours no end, but yet he still cries and screams.

For the past two days I was struck by high fever. My midwife ordered full bed rest so that I can recover faster. This was of course a wonderful suggestion, as I secretly (or not) longing for a longer time lying in bed (who doesn’t?). But as a mother there are certain things that you have to do, regardless whether you are busy or not, sick or healthy. So, while having myself a cold compress I was having him on my left arm so that he could drink and at the same time using my right arm and hand to do other things like drinking water, taking pain killer, sending text messages, calling people on the phone, and again the list goes.

My multi tasking ‘ability’ is really nothing in comparison to so many women in other parts of the world. Many women in Africa and Asia for example have to carry their babies all day while working on corn or rice fields, or carry heavy loads of woods or agricultural goods in heavy sacks on their backs. Another example is women in Bali that I have seen carrying things on the top of their heads while having their little ones on their backs – how do they do that, it’s a mystery to me.

a.

More old friends

A while ago I wrote about a website that I re-discovered after someone sent me an eMail commenting about it – it’s the MOMO page that you can find here on this blog.

Today I am not talking about the site though but about real people, old friends that keep reappearing. The last few months I got invitations on Facebook and Xing like websites (I think I registered on about half a dozen of those sites, but don’t use all of them all the time) from friends I have not seen in 10 years or more. You can argue of course whether I should call them friends, and probably I won’t talk with many of them any more after exchanging some eMails. But it IS nice nonetheless to be reminded of your past, of people you hung out with and spent part of your life. It is also interesting to see that (those that bother to register on those types of sites) all made their own in their life, some on more involved paths, some on more straightforward ones. Guess that one of the costs of moving around a lot is that you tend to have serial friends, only very few survive more than one or two moves to other countries. Which in a sense is good, as it gives you “space” to make new friends and connections, but on the other hand it is sad, because many of the people you met are worth keeping, many more than you end up staying in contact.

b.

Berlin must be so safe…

… because the police here has nothing better to do than stopping bikers that bike the on the pavement, and extract the exorbitant sum of €5 from them. This is what happened to me yesterday, when I wanted nothing but get home after a hard days of work – the shortest route leads past a police station, just before turning off a big street. For the last few months, I have been biking the wrong way past the police station, without ever getting stopped. A. warned me however that – this being Germany – I would sooner or later run into trouble.

I wonder how much money it actually cost to stop me, have 2 cops talking to me for about 15 minutes, write me a bill on paper which then has to be hand typed into the computer, checked against my details, mailing a letter with the warning to my home, and check whether I payed. No wonder Berlin is broke.

It is not so much the €5 I have to pay that bugs me (if I ever receive that bill), what really irritates me is one of the two cops did not even see the irony of the situation – for him, it was more than normal to stop a biker biking slowly on a HUGE pavement, where no people (other than the police) was walking. The concept of tolerance, or of proportionality, or of interpreting law within reason was something that did not even occur to him. (I have to add, the other cop, a woman, had the decency of feeling slightly embarrassed, or so I thought.) Of course, I can already hear the copper say that corruption and anarchy would be the result if everyone interpreted the law as he or she saw fit. However, I beg to differ, and point to for example the Netherlands, where tolerance or “dogen” is practised with great success (in areas such as soft drugs, but also in general). I cannot but wonder whether it is a particulcarly German straight, this “following the rules”, and not wanting to take responsibility for the actions.

This one cop suggested that if I didn’t like the rule, I should get politically active and have them change the law. It is not the law per se that needs to be changed though, as driving dangeously on the pavement is something that should not be condoned. It is the ability (of for example that particular cop) to look around and see that no harm whatsoever is done, that the rule in that particular case is absurd, and that a wagging finger would have had the same result. But that requires more than political action committees.

b.