Freedom Film Festival 2007 (Penang leg)

Freedom Film Festival 2007’s Penang leg kicked off on Friday, 22nd of September at 7.30 pm at the Actor Studio Greenhall . The opening speech was by a “YB”. You’ll be asking me why I am using inverted commas for the YB next… Well, the reason for it is because the “YB” is NOT a real YB. For my readers who are not familiar with the Malaysian terms, YB means Yang Berhormat a.k.a the representative of the people in the Parliament. In other words, the opening is a parody of who are the people who sponsored Freedom Film Fest. The winners were next introduced. Ong Boon Keong, Fahmi Reza and Indrani.

The first video that was showed that night was “I love Malaya” This video was made by Asia Witness Production. It’s about the struggle of the former Communist leaders of Malaysia who fought for our Independence along side the other leaders. The other leaders used words and sucked up to the British leaders but not these people. They stood firm to their policies.

They are currently living in Thailand, stateless as they ran away from Malaysia but running away from the land they fight for is not because they do not love the country, rather they have no choice but to save their lives that are threaten by the Government that was bent to break them up. The video looks back into the time after the Malaysian Government decided to accept the ex members of the Communist. They said that they are welcome to return back to Malaysia. The media reported that and after that there was no more news about all of these until Chin Peng wanted to returned to visit his parent’s grave. He also expressed his wish to live out the remainder of his days in his hometown of Sitiawan.

Next, we had a documentary by Aljazeera titled, River Kwai. It’s about the infamous Siam- Burma railway was an ugly chapter of world war. This story revolves the untold story of how the majority of sweat and blood spilled on the railway belong to Asian workers, forced to work as slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army. For the first time, some of the survivors of that
horror have brought their case to court demanding compensation and an apology. 101 follows the battle for compensation by the forgotten survivors of the Siam-Burma Death Railway.

Not forgetting also a parody the height of election season and 4 candidates, including the incumbent have a chance to address the nation on television, set in a fictional country called Faltasia. It’s called “Idiot Nation” by Tan Meng Yoe.

The finale of the night is “Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka” by Fahmi Reza, one of the winners for the Freedom Film Festival 2007. Unknown to many, October 20th, 1947 was an important and historical day in the people’s constitutional struggle for independence from British colonialism. This documentary chronicles the events that culminated in the Malaya-wide
‘Hartal’ day of protest (a form of non-violent protest) against the undemocratic Federation of Malaya Constitutional Proposals devised by the British Colonial Government and the UMNO. This was the rise of the people’s democratic movement in Malaya, ten years before Merdeka.

There was a short sharing and discussion after the movie screening...

Wanna see the pictures for the event??? Just scroll down~ (coming soon!)