Last night, one of our greatest storytellers, Yasmin Ahmad passed away. I was lucky enough to have to met her at some of her talks and screenings. She was a very bright, down-to-earth, funny and artistic women.
After 50 commercials, 6 films and 11 international awards, Yasmin has done her job well uniting people of various backgrounds telling stories and touching hearts. Now God needs her more than we do. Al-Fatihah to her precious soul.
Gadoh is a 70-minute feature film that explores our perception of identity and challenges our hatred of the “other”.
This film is directed by Brenda Danker and Namron and produced by Big Pictures Production for KOMAS, a Malaysian human rights organisation.”
Gadoh tells a story of a group of teenagers who fought each other along racial lines; a cycle of hatred and violence further escalated by their environment and school system.
What was to be a quick resolution to improve the school’s bad image, was taken as an opportunity for one teacher who believed that real change was possible. She ropes in the help of an old friend and reluctant maverick theater activist for this arduous task.
Is there hope amidst the cycle of discrimination that surrounds us?
Watch Gadoh for their story, and what it may very well tell us about ourselves.
Gadoh trailer
KOMAS will be having a FREE Public Screening of Gadoh on
Date: Friday, 22nd May 2009
Time: 5 PM
Venue: Theatrette, HELP University College, BZ-2 Pusat Bandar Damansara, KL.
For free passes, please email gadohthemovie@gmail.com. Official launch and screening at 8 PM (by special invites only). Limited Gadoh DVDs and stickers will be also be given to viewers on that day only!
Read the directors interview with Time Out KL about the movie here.
Super-director, Spike Jonze(Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has a new film out called Where The Wild Things Are, adapted from an award-winning 1963 children’s picture book of the same name by Maurice Sendak. From Wikipedia;
The film concerns the imaginary adventures of a young boy named Max, who is angry when his mother, Connie, invites her boyfriend over. After causing one mischievous antic after another, he is sent to his room without supper. Feeling angry and unloved, he then creates a forest bordering a massive ocean, and sails away to an island inhabited by many large imaginary monsters called the Wild Things, who crown him as their ruler.
Featuring first time actor Max Records(cool name, huh?) as Max, and Chris Cooper(Adaptation), James Gandolfini(The Sopranos), Catherine O’Hara(Penelope), Forest Whitaker(Vantage Point) doing voice over for the Wild Things. The monsters featured actors in nine feet tall foam suit with a CGI and animatronics head made by The Jim Henson Company, famous for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
The trailer looks awesome and feels like any of Jonze’s out-of-this-world works. Combined with The Jim Henson Company animatronics/puppet prowess, the dark fantasy mood reminds me of their 1982’s The Dark Crystal.
Much has been said about the book as being a classic children’s literature and all time favorite for generations who owns it. One of the reason’s being Sendak’s beautiful and detailed illustrations. It’s even mind-boggling knowing how Jonze’s could turn a ten sentences long book into a whole feature!
Maurice Sendak's 1963 'Where The Wild Things Are'
The $80 million film took 3 years to make and was supposed to be released last October, but Jonze being a perfectionist, wants to tweak it some more and will release it this Fall.
Read Jonze’s comprehensive interview about the film with Ain’t It Cool News here. More info soon at the film’s official website.
P/S: I’m currently looking for the book here in KL. If anybody found/has it, drop me a comment! (UPDATED 10/04/09: Bought the only copy left at Borders last week at The Curve for RM68! It is a classic and the illustrations are awesome! Will upload some pics soon.)
Charlie Kaufman, ‘Hollywood’s brainiest screenwriter’ who gave us the amazing Being John Malkovich, beautiful Adaptation and mind-bending Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, has a new masterpiece called, Synecdoche, New York(pronounced “sih-neck-duh-kee”). It’s the 50 year old’s directorial debut and was premiered at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival last year. The ‘epic tragicomic’ film is produced by long time collaborator Spike Jonze who directed Malkovich and Adaptation, and stars Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Film trailer
From Wired’s article about Kaufman and the film, Synecdoche;
…revolves around theater director Caden Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), who attempts to capture the “brutal truth” of his own existence by staging a real-time re-creation of it. He casts an actor to play him, who then must cast an actor to play him, and so on. Caden’s girlfriend attracts the affections of the actor playing Caden, and Caden sleeps with the actress playing her. The entire story, meanwhile, is filtered through Caden’s perspective — further complicating matters, because his autonomic nervous system may be shutting down, and there are hints that he suffers from psychosis, chromosomal damage, and Capgras syndrome — believing real things are replicas. (Caden’s last name, Cotard, is also the name of a delusion that causes sufferers to believe that they are dead or dying.)
The film has already being nominated and won several awards including Best Original Screenplay, Production Design and Best Ensemble and received good critics from New York Post, Chicago-Sun Times calling it “a brilliant film” and Time calling it “a miracle movie” while Wired magazine said the film “makes Adaptation look like Dude, Where’s My Car?“.
Although Synecdoche has limited screenings, the DVD and Blu-ray version will be available March 10th.
Wanna know the meaning of the film’s title? Check out the official site’s Flash intro. And check out the cool streaming OST music!
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