UpToTheSky Sea Indie Music Video Program5 min read
Reading Time: 4 minutesKeeping in a similar vein to the line-ups on the music stages, Uptothesky Festival celebrates the talents of top regional film-makers alongside headliner, French filmmaker Vincent Moon.
Boasting a selection which many say are worthy of a film festival all by itself, festival go-ers will be given an exclusive screening and talk of a selection of Vincent Moon’s ‘Take Away Shows‘ (www.blogotheque.net), premier local visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s ‘The Bohemian Rhapsody Project‘ (prize-winning short, screened at over 30 film festivals) and ‘Earth‘ (Cannes Film Festival Director’s Fortnight Selection), Indonesian Film Festival’s organizer (www.okvideofestival.org) Ruangrupa’s selection from OK Video Festival 2003, a personal selection of short films by Dimas Wisnuwardono (vimeo.com/dimaswisnuwardono) and the newly released music documentary ‘Ignore All Detour Signs’ by Helmi Ali and Razin Ramzi, which chronicles Singaporean post-rock outfit, I Am David Sparkles road to SXSW.
Screening Schedule*:
7pm – 8.30pm: UpToTheSky Festival presents Petites Planetes x Take Away Shows by Vincent Moon (90′) (screening & talk) – FR
8.40pm – 9.30pm: “The Bohemian Rhapsody Project” and “Earth” (sound by Yasuhiro Morinaga with music from Stefano Pilia) by Ho Tzu Nyen (46′) – SG
9.35pm – 10.15pm: Music Video from OK Video – Jakarta International Video Festival by Ruangrupa (40′) – ID
10.25pm – 10.55pm: Sounds From The Corner Of Southeast Asia by Dimas Wisnuwardono (40′) – ID (Rockin the Region – L’alphalpha, 24:12) (The Trees and the Wild Malaysia – Singapore Tour Part 1, 19:14)
11.05pm – 12.00mn: “Ignore All Detour Signs”, a music documentary by Helmi Ali & Razin Ramzi (55′) – SG
*All screenings are held in Sinema Old School. Admission with UpToTheSky Festival’s wristband.
Synopsis
1. UpToTheSky Festival presents Petites Planetes x Take Away Shows by Vincent Moon (screening & talk)
World-acclaimed French filmmaker Vincent Moon sets his foot in Southeast Asia for the first time with his new project Petites Planetes, a collection of recordings, experiments from all around the world. His incomparable approach to video and technique has made him an important figure of the Indie music scene that cannot be ignored. Vincent Moon has started with La Blogotheque for which he filmed a series of outdoor/wild documentaries consisting in improviised video sessions with musicians as big as Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut, Grizzly Bear; set in unexpected locations and broadcasted freely on the web.
With Petites Planetes, Vincent is going further. His new works all revolve around the same question: What does a city sound like? From Indonesia to Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, Vincent will try to capture the sonic and musical profile of each country, bringing in his artistic portraits this intimate and emotional touch that makes his movies precious and unique. A must-see screening!
2. “The Bohemian Rhapsody Project” and “Earth” by Ho Tzu Nyen
Earth is a filmic tableau vivant, a dream-like rendition of a pile of waste & matter with living human beings lying about in clusters, almost motionless. Night becomes day and becomes night again as light spots reveal as much as they hide in a post-apocalyptic scenario of some miniature world. There is tension; there isn’t much happening and much less coherence. These people are barely awake – yet what is this sleep?
The Bohemian Rhapsody Project is a film set in the Supreme Court of Singapore, which takes its spoken dialogue entirely from the lyrics of the song. The context is a courtroom trial and the characters are the accused, wearing orange suits and the judge in traditional court garb, along with the police, jury and the public and, although not generally present in the courtroom, a chorus of girls in white. The films further explores the mechanisms of the media by documenting its own production as the apparatus of the film’s own making are folded into the film itself. This film-within-a-film quality, the theatricality of the piece, along with the adoption of a pop-culture framework, alludes to the theatrical nature of the courtroom as it is presented in the media and popular culture.
3. Music video from OK Video – Jakarta International Video Festival
A selection of music videos which have been shown in the OK Video Festival 2003 in Jakarta by Ruangrupa. This selection shows music video as an artistic medium rather than a commercial tool.
4. Sounds From The Corner of Southeast Asia by Dimas Wisnuwardono
Sounds From The Corner is a developing project based in Jakarta, made by Dimas Wisnuwardono and his friends to build an archive of music documentation of Jakarta’s and its surrounding scene.
– The Trees and the Wild Malaysia // Singapore Tour (duration 16:04)
The following is an excerpt from 4 parts of short videos uploaded in Dimas’ Vimeo. It shows us how The Trees and The Wild performed in two different ASEAN countries, in both full band and acoustic formats.
– Rockin The Region: L’alphalpha (duration 24:12)
Rockin The Region was one of the Esplanade’s monthly program where they invited 3 particular bands from different Southeast Asian countries each month. In April 2011, they invited 3 bands from Indonesia. L’alphalpha was one of the bands that were able to be documented by Dimas at the time.
5. Ignore All Detour Signs by Helmi Ali & Razin Ramzi
Ignore All Detour Signs is Singapore’s first feature length music documentary. Captured on the fly in intimate settings over 2 years, it features post-rock band I Am David Sparkle in their struggle against time, money woes and foreign bureaucracy. This documentary chronicles their journey of passion & belief in order to bring their act across borders. Ignore All Detour Signs had its premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) 2011.
