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Sunitha and colleague Patriana pick me up in the morning and we drive to our first meeting which is with the Multimedia Development Corporation (Mdec). They are based in a kind of science park 30 minutes or so out of the main centre of KL. This seems to be one of the issues and similar to Singapore. There is a momentum about building new places on the outskirts and whilst there is a daytime population there is no evening economy to speak of. I think this is what interested Sunitha in the first place when she came to visit Watershed. How our central location and cultural offer create a certain dynamic within the city.

Mdec is the business of digital and multimedia development. I do my presentation and again there is much interest in the evolving model of Watershed. I am also pleasantly surprised (and a bit relieved) to find out that their vice president of Creative Multimedia Department, Kamil Othman, is a true cinephile. He studied at Sussex University – the reason being, he would be close to the National Film Theatre. He knows his cinema and we talk about Bertolucci – Watershed is about to show the new print of the conformist. (He also still subscribes to Sight and Sound, is sad the NFT changed their brochure and collects movie posters!) He gets Watershed in an instant and is keen to learn more to the extent that a cultural/political delegation visit is mooted.



We have a look round their facilities which are extensive in immersive screens – surround style with 3D rendering – in this instance – of early Malay cultures. Upstairs are the ‘creatives spaces’. One room is a production house for Saladin an animated series currently under production for television. (Saladin was 12th century Muslim leader who during the crusades famously recaptured Jerusalem) Another space is for designers who I will meet later at the evening talk.

Onto FiNAS, the National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia. Cinema exhibition in Malayasia seems to me very underdeveloped in terms cultural diversity. This it would appear is largely due to quite rigid state censorship. There are very clear restrictions in what can be screened thus the domestic market is filled with cooky comedies and trash horror with a large amount of Chinese- ie Hong Kong - and bollywood imports. It is interesting to hear and see round the studio space at FiNAS but is quickly apparent to me that we are speaking – cinematic wise – completely different languages, mainstream commercial and celeb driven whereas I am interested in niche, cultural and usually unknowns.



I finally meet my Indonesian filmmaker – well I have thought of as such, turns out Wahyu Aditya is founder of Hello;Motion and a bit of a serious entrepreneur based in Jakarta – a 2 hour flight away. He shows me the work he is involved in and it looks great. He runs an animation training centre and an animation festival filling a hall of 1600 in the process. He has money from the British Council to travel to the UK in the near future and I say he must come to Bristol and we can develop the exchange.



I have a couple of interviews that the British Council press office has arranged. One with a daily newspaper about how you get into the business. The journalist asks me how I got started in my career. I say it all began with Jimmy Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, probably The Roaring Twenties, dir by William Wellman . The second is with a monthly lifestyle magazine – those amongst you who know me can stop chuckling right now!



In the evening I have been lined up to give a talk on Watershed and Encounters Short Film Festival to emerging directors, producers, digital creatives and festival organisers. It’s in a funky place called Palette and we have large screen projection on wall, internet access, drinks and food. I can sense this is where the creative energy is – lots of interest and enthusiasm and plenty of business cards and dvds slip into my hands. I silently wish them the best but suspect that with a the situation re regulation of cinema and moving images they may find it an uphill struggle to achieve open and free exchange of ideas and moving images. Still this feels like the seeds and hopefully some of these filmmakers future work will be screened at future Encounters Short Film Festivals


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Am writing this from Kuala Lumper, where I arrived a couple of days ago – it takes as long to drive to drive from the airport to city centre as it does to fly from Singapore (circa 30mins!) No sooner is the plane in the air than we are preparing to land. Reflections on Singapore – it feels like relationships can develop and great potential for collaborations. All the British delegation – Lenny, Carrie, Lynda and Joe - had arrived and more meetings, discussions, ideas flowed. Some highlights: Lynda Myles (I hope you have imdb’d her) and I were invited to see Boo Junfeng’s work in progress at the Puttnam Film School. It is a very accomplished short and already being earmarked a slot in Cannes – if he can get it finished in time! Lynda and I agree that Junfeng is clearly another great potential for Singapore cinema.



Joe Magee and I prepare for our event – a run through Joe’s career to date – by walking through the botanic gardens. In discussion Joe reveals that he was into designing on computers in the very early days and also working for a computer company. As such he ended up advising designers such as Neville Brody and Peter Saville- his design heroes - on the possibilities of the new technology. The talk goes well and despite being advised that Singaporeans do not ask questions there is a good discussion at the end.


The following day I have my screening of UK British shorts on the theme of the city. The cumulative effect of the films is quite grim – UK city life as portrayed in short films is not a very happy place! Where Singaporean filmmakers could generically be described as melancholic, we in Britain are, how should I put it, nervy. What strikes me is that the city is not seen in a celebratory way – at least in short film. I always mention Royston’s Hock Hiap Leong which has such infectious enthusiastic energy to it.



The screening is followed by the symposium where Singaporean/British producers and director share their experience of filming in and imagining the city. Lenny reminds us that Shallow Grave – a film he put money into in his earlier role in Glasgow Film Office – was set in Edinburgh but with the exception of a few exterior shots was filmed entirely in Glasgow. Some of Joe's work is interested in surveillance – we don’t need to remind the audience that the UK has one the highest cctv cameras per head of population – and off course Carrie’s film which she produced Red Road, and which screened the previous night in the festival, is about a woman who watches cctv monitors – its all about connections! Singaporean filmmakers refer a lot to the public housing here and indeed a number of films are set in those locations. It is obviously a very informing aspect of the Singaporean psyche as indeed is the constant transformation of the city, the clearing of the old for the building of the new. The symposium is chaired by Ben who brings an excellent balance of informed and articulate context and opinion to proceedings. The session on producing is chaired by the ever-ebullient Herrmann – head of the Puttnam Film School – who I have taken to thinking is named Bernard (those cinephiles out there will understand the confusion)



(note on Ben – he has written an excellent book Kinda Hot on the making of Saint Jack. The film which Peter Bogdanovich made in Singapore in the late 1970s with Ben Gazzara and Denholm Elliot. I start reading on flight to KL and it is full of great detail on filmmaking of that era – Bogdanovich was close to Orson Welles at this point and also recently graduated from the Roger Corman school of filmmaking. It is also a great route into Singapore history. A real treat.)



All the above takes place at Lasalle which Joe is now thinking is his second home and indeed his workshop is lined up there for Monday. I get and email when I arrive in KL from Alison which says the workshop went very well and the student's and Joe’s work will be shown in an exhibition. I forget but must ask if the can be put online? The various departments at Lasalle make for an interesting potential links – Wolfgang in charge of new media, Hermann the Film School and Alison in charge of design – I say to Wolfgang that I will send him links on the various projects we are involved in - from Luke Jerram’s Dream Director to Hazel Grian’s journeys into alternate reality gaming. I mention to Dan that a colleague is coming out to the ISEA conference in July and I can see his organising mind start to work.



Last night I was sitting in hotel lounge here in KL listening to an Indonesian covers act singing Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton Islands In the Stream – such a wonderful song here slowly dismantled – when I get a text from Dan. He has just watched John Smith’s Blight which was part of the programme I put together and is very impressed. It is such a brilliant film and one which I put into my canon of UK short films at last year’s Encounters Festival. A retrospective of John’s work would be great at Lasalle – maybe next year!



I am met in KL by Sunitha Janamohanan who is the Arts Manager for the British Council here in Malayasia. She has line me up to meet MDeC which is the multimedia development corporation here in KL and FINAS which is the film development agency. Also there is an opportunity to share experiences with local filmmakers. I am interested to see what is evolving in the short filmmaking and digital areas. Sunitha also mentions that a filmmaker is coming over from Indonesia to have a chat. "Coming over from Indonesia" sounds just so casual!]]> http://www.dshed.net/studio/festivals/singapore_08/index.php?entry=entry080404-113847

The morning started off with big meeting with the Singapore Media Development authority. A delegation from British Council including Dan’s boss Eunice and Elsie Yim who is Senior Trade and Investment Attaché for British High Commission. We are meeting Dr Christopher Chia, Chief Executive of the MDA and his colleagues. Dr Chia is a dynamic guy having set up the new national library of Singapore in a great new modern building which embraced the possibilities of digital technology. I’m here to tell about Watershed and how we have become more than “just a cinema and a café bar” into variously a networking hub, cultural cluster, innovator, talent incubator. Singapore is in the position of building a new arts complex which will host the new MDA offices so are interested in the various aspects of Watershed’s activities. Whilst we have the usual pfaffin about with the technology - leads, and connectivity – Dr Chia says he how fond he is of British comedy – indeed Singaporeans in general are into British comedy, Hot Fuzz was a huge hit here - suddenly the projector goes down as the on/off switch is accidentally hit. I kinda feel we might be moving into Basil Fawlty moment. The meeting gets going and feels like a good exchange of experiences.



Afterwards Dan and I have lunch with Kenneth Tan and Chee Wee Tan from the Singapore Film Commission who were at the meeting. Kenneth is a really interesting figure in Singapore media. He was director of exhibition outlet Golden Village, one of the key cinema chains. He is heavily involved in the Singapore Film Society which is a hugely significant body for promotion of film and he is currently about to take on heading up the Singapore Film Commission as part of the MDA. He is also a great raconteur. He tells us that Singapore has one of the highest annual visits to the cinema per head of population – 4. (The UK is about 2.4) When Kenneth was in charge of the cinema chain, he always kept a cinema free for Singaporean cinema. Through the discussion it becomes apparent that he has a huge knowledge of world cinema and regularly attends the major film markets. We discuss the possibilities of programming exchanges and again feels that things can be developed. (I see him again at breakfast meeting with producer Lynda Myles from the NFTS – more about Lynda later but put her name into imdb to see her extraordinary track record) and continue and expand on some of the ideas. At the end of the meal we exchange some of the more hair-raising experiences of running a cinema. (Ed: Those are best told over a drink!)



After this we shoot up to British Council HQ for meeting with Dave Chua who has developed an animation festival Animated Nation. He has screened a whole host of UK animation and is, of course, very interested in trying to do something with Aardman Animation who are based in Bristol. Whilst I am happy to help I’m not on Aardman’s payroll and give contacts to speak to them direct. Dan I think is interested in both the possibilities of an exhibition and getting some of the amazing Aards talents over to stimulte the nascent Singapore Animation industry.



Can’t remember if I mentioned but Bristol based artist/filmmaker Joe Magee was due to arrive yesterday but got stuck in Amsterdam after missing a connecting flight and so had to spend 24 hrs at Schipol airport minus luggage. He finally arrives and is greeted outside the airport by the most almighty tropical thunderstorm. I try to convince him that it has been really sunny. The new arrivals – Joe and Lynda – and old hack and Dan head to the 21st Birthday celebration of the Singapore International Film Festival. Where we are handed a free miniature of Bombay Sapphire Gin – think Joe finally believes things are improving!

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Today started with a roundtable discussion at Lasalle College of the Arts - beginning to think of this place as my second home - on the role of education sector in the Creative Industries Strategy. This has evolved out of the new thinking around the role of creativity in stimulating the economy. See UK government's Creative Britain report for more context. It really marks a shift away from a 20th century industrial model economy to a 21st century knowledge driven economy. A UK government delegation is here from the University sector accompanying the Education and Skills Minister Bill Rammel and this roundtable is organised by The British Council and Lasalle Art College.



Before going into detail - some more crazy Scottish-Singapore connections. I meet Eunice Crook who is director of British Council in Singapore and Dan's boss, who I quite quickly ascertain is Scottish. Ditto she with me. She says "Dan you didn’t tell me he was Scottish!" As we trace Glaswegian roots, she exclaims "oh for heaven's sake you're Jimmy Cosgrove's boy!" (ed: the elder Cosgrove Clan Chief who taught n was deputy director at Glasgow School of Art)

So there are three roundtables and we are invited by Eunice to reflect on the demands asked of the Education sector in an age where creativity is being recognised as increasingly important driver of the economy. She is preceded by Lee Suan Hiang who is both CEO of the Singapore Arts Council and President of Lasalle. He is an ebullient character and in the opening speech summarises the situation as how do we move from an economic model based on 'maximum profitability from minimum waste' to something all together less tangible and more riskier. (He was more elegant and pithy than that but.....)

I am at the table with Mr Lee, Ted Leckman who is from USA and has recently taken up a post as Director of Training at Lucasfilm Animation in Singapore (and he is seriously into his cinema - hopefully we will meet in more social environment during some festival events), Anita Kuan, Director of School of Film & Media Studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnicand Prof Paul O' Prey Vice Chancellor of Roehampton University in London. We have stimulating conversation, that at this stage in the evening I simply cannot remember any details except that Dan was taking notes and the results will be written up and disseminated. During the meeting I made some contribution around what we are up to at Watershed with regards to talent development and profiling through events like Encounters Short Film Festival. A couple of times Paul says " yes I can testify to that?" Over coffee it turns out he has a house in Bristol and regularly uses Watershed and his son spent time as an usher. Can you believe it, we make arrangements to meet in Bristol? You go half way round the world to meet a neighbour! (Wonder what Marshall McLuhan would have made of that?)



Lunch is absolutely fantastic as I have come to expect. LaSalle Film Dept head Hermann Van Eyck takes us to a small place specialising in a specific kind of Malay food. We are here to plan the forthcoming Cities in Film symposium. The event is being chaired by Ben Slater, an old friend of Watershed who was involved in running the Cube microplex Cinema in Bristol. Ben studied at Bristol and along with Gareth Evans (now editor of Vertigo magazine approached me to programme a strand on cinema from the margins. He moved to Singapore a few years ago and lectures and writes on film.



The day is rounded off with two meetings. The first is with Zhang Wenjie who manages the film programme at the National Museum of Singapore, where Lion City was screened the day before. He is an extremely knowledgeable about early cinema and talks about how he is developing the film aspect of there work. There again feels like there could be a real exchange of projects - ranging from the live music/silent films we have been commissioning at Watershed to short film programmes to archive Asian cinema. As is the way, we get excited about possibilities. He shows us round the museum and in particular an installation on early Malay film which was put together by Royston.



Finally to one of my first public presentations, This is at the Substation, whose moving image programme manager Kristin Saw I met yesterday. It is a about Encounters and short film festivals. I am joined on stage by 3 of the Singaporean filmmakers who had attended Encounters last November. In the course of the discussion one of the filmmakers gives a wonderful account of the impact being at Encounters had had, both in terms of giving validation to her films and endeavours as a filmmaker, (many people from the UK Film Industry who were at the screening in Bristol had talked enthusiastically to the filmmakers after) and also reinforcing a sense of internationally community of filmmaking and, interestingly, in terms of building relations between the Singaporeans that had shared in the expedition. Its that kind of testimony that I wish we could bottle and put into business plans and funding applications.]]> http://www.dshed.net/studio/festivals/singapore_08/index.php?entry=entry080331-212652

The final event of the day is seeing Lion City dir by Yi Sui from 1960. It is being shown as the opening film at the inaugural Perspectives Film Festival at the National Museum of Singapore . A great initiative as it is about the history of Singapore cinema curated by students at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information as part of their coursework and presented in collaboration with the Museum. The film is from what is described as the Golden age of Singapore Cinema when two studios - Shaw Brothers and Cathay - dominated production and were making, in its heyday, 22 films a year. Lion City is set in the newly built public housing which is a big feature of Singaporean life. It reminded me in style and setting of the what became known as Kitchen Sink dramas in the UK - films which documented the domestic every day experience of working class life, such as (Bristol born!) J. Lee Thompson's Yield to the Night (1958) - but without the scandal and, in the cases of Lindsay Anderson/Ken Loach, without the politics!



The evening is introduced by the students and has a turn out of well over 300 people, a few I am beginning to recognise. Dan, as ever, keeps me on the straight and narrow with introductions and reminds me of context. He introduces me to Freddie Yeo who runs Singapore's main facilities and post-production house Infinite Frameworks and is also on the board of the Film Commission. We talk about the energy in young filmmakers in Singapore at the moment and also the possibility of getting some Singaporean features touring around the UK. The screening is introduced by guest Speaker Tan Pin Pin. Dan has been mentioning her, she is the director of Singapore GaGA a groundbreaking documentary about Singapore. It is groundbreaking for a number of reasons; there is simply no tradition of documentary, it was voted best film of 2006 by the Singaporean Strait Times and as a self-distributed film it had an unprecedented seven week sold out run. Dan has given me a copy of the film and I will meet Tan Pin Pin later in the week.



Dan also mentions that one of the filmmakers who we met at Lasalle and whose earlier film we screened at encounters is in post-production of their short would like me to see a rough-cut and feedback comments. yes I say, would love to, then immediately start sweating - what have I just agreed to. We shall see.]]> http://www.dshed.net/studio/festivals/singapore_08/index.php?entry=entry080331-074937
Meet Dan in foyer of hotel and we head off to the Singapore Film Festival headquarters to meet the Festival team; Director Philip Cheah, Manager Yuni Hadi. Yuni Hadi also is involved in Objectifsfilms one of the major distribution/sales agencies for films from Asia. As we head for coffee Philip and I get into a conversation about the resurgence and influence of punk and the decline of the NME - as you do in Singapore. He gives me a book and says this the unofficial guide to Singapore. It is Attack of the S.M. Space Encroachers by X'Ho subtitled A Gratuitous Gripe-Fest Fuelled by Loathing & Disgust of Ugly Singaporeans Minding Insidious Lifestyle-Coercions. From reading his biog sounds like X'ho is a cross between John Peel and Charles Shaar Murray. We are joined by Kristin Saw from the Substation where I will be visiting later in the week and discuss Singaporean cinema over delicious refreshingly cold bean curd soup. There are already films I am eager to see and Philip tips me the wink on a couple of new Singaporean feature films.








The Film Festival office is housed in the basement of the just recently opened Lasalle College of the Arts where we will be presenting the screening of shorts and Joe's work. Dan mentions to me the name Alison Harley and something clicks with the distant memories of my brain. I say that the name is familiar and Dan says she has come from Glasgow - there's the connection. Turns out she's a former student of Glasgow School of Art. taught funnily enough by an older generation of the Clan Cosgrove (!) Alison is now Dean of the Faculty of Design here at Lasalle. Dan quickly manages to get a meeting arranged and over coffee we decide it would be a great opportunity for Joe to do a workshop with students in the faculty next week.





We are in Lasalle to meet Herman Van Eyken who is head of the Puttnam School of Film. Yes that Puttnam! One of his students came over to Bristol on the exchange. He has just screened Bertrand Tavernier's Clean Slate to his students and introduces me to his students and gives me the opportunity to plug the various events that are coming up. It is a difficult time as students are finishing their final year projects but hopefully they will make it to something. We then meet up with Wolfgang Muench Dean of Media Arts and Milenko Prvacki Dean of Fine Arts. The energy around the place is tangible and when I discuss the various projects that Watershed is involved and show work from our various online shed portfolios it doesn't feel far-fetched to think collaborations could easily happen.]]>