Single shot IN FOCUS

FILMMAKER LEONARD Retel Helmrich, famed for his “Single Shot Cinema” approach, is this year’s “director in focus” at the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival, which starts tomorrow at the Thai Film Archive and also runs next week at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Screening at the fest will be his award-winning documentaries, the triptych “Eye of the Day”, “Shape of the Moon” and “Position Among the Stars” plus “Promised Paradise”, all of which reflect his Indo-Dutch heritage. Helmrich will be on hand to teach a masterclass to registered participants and also answer audience questions after a film screening.
Born in the Netherlands in 1959, Helmrich is the son of an Indo-Dutch father from the former Dutch East Indies and a Javanese mother who repatriated to the Netherlands after Indonesian independence. Gravitating toward filmmaking, he graduated from the Dutch Film and Television Academy in 1986 and in 1990 he made his first feature, a fictional work “The Phoenix Mystery” before turning to documentaries in 1991 with “Moving Objects”, which won a special jury prize at San Francisco’s Golden Gate film fest.
He then took an interest in visiting the birthplace of his parents, and his work in documenting the Suharto regime earned him “persona non grata” status in Indonesia for a time. Eventually allowed to return, he then set about to make a series of films about the struggles of a Jakarta slum family during a time of great political and social upheaval. Covering a period of 12 years – a feat copied by the recent Oscar winner “Boyhood” – the resulting films were 2001’s “The Eye of the Day”, 2004’s “Shape of the Moon” and 2010’s “Position Among the Stars”.
All feature Rumidja, an elderly Christian woman and her family. In “Eye”, they struggle to find enough to eat against the backdrop of an election that would throw ex-president Suharto’s ruling Golkar party out of power while “Shape of the Moon” – a prize –winner at Sundance – addresses the Islamisation of Indonesia. “Position Among the Stars” catches up with the family amid the backdrop of continuing societal ills – corruption, religious conflict, gambling and the widening gap between the poor and rich.
A fourth film, “Promised Paradise” from 2006, follows a man who is searching for answers following the 9/11 attacks. He then sets out to meet Imam Samudra, the convicted ringleader of the 2002 Bali disco bombing and even consults a medium in order to talk the spirit of a suicide bomber to ask him if he had any regrets.
All employ what Helmrich has dubbed “Single Shot Cinema”, an approach that puts the stabilised camera close to a subject, moving with flexibility, but also kept steady. In one of several clips on YouTube demonstrating the technique, he oversees the fluid handoff of a camera from one cameraman to another, all while keeping the lens level and firmly fixed on its subject.
Another dramatic example of the technique is a clip from “Shape of the Moon”, which follows a man as he walks along the edge of a busy railway trestle, high above mountain jungles and plantations. It’s a tense scene, especially for viewers who are anxious about heights or bridges.
Apart from Helmrich, another director also has his eye on Indonesia – Denmark-based American Joshua Oppenheimer – who lifted the lid off the men behind the Indonesian military death squads of the 1960s in 2012’s “The Act of Killing”. His followup, “The Look of Silence”, is the festival’s opener.
Turning to other Southeast Asian countries, there’s “No Word from Worry”, in which Norwegian director Runar Jarle Wiik looks at the fast-fading culture of Moken “sea gypsies” in Myanmar’s Mergui archipelago. Wiik will be present for a question-and-answer session following the screening at 6pm on Tuesday at BACC.
And the line-up for the Asean documentary competition has been completed, with seven features and shorts from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, many of which have been award winners on the festival circuit.
French-Cambodian director offers “The Storm Makers”, about a notorious maid-recruiting service. “Die Before Blossom”, by Indonesian Ariani Djalal, looks at the Islamisation of public schools. “Lady of the Lake” heads to Myanmar for a visit with a spirit-worshipping cult while “Madam Phung’s Last Journey” follows a carnival troupe led by ageing drag queens around Vietnam. Singapore’s “03-Flats” stays right at home for a peek into the city-state’s public housing programme.
From the Philippines comes “Nick and Chai”, a profile of a couple who lost their four children to 2013’s Typhoon Yolanda. Left childless, the put their energy into the reconstruction of a devastated society.
And from Thailand comes a remarkable student entry, “Echoes from the Hill”, which covers the “simple human” Pgaz K’Nyau people, who’s simple ways of living in harmony with nature are under threat by the Thai government’s attempts to build a dam and make their ancestral forest lands a national park. Jirudtikal Prasonchoom and Pasit Tandaechanurat, students at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, direct.
Further afield, highlights include a one-off showing of “Diving Bell: The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol”, which has been controversial in South Korea for its criticism of the government’s handling of the 2014 ferry sinking. The plight of Japanese farmers opposed to airport expansion is covered in “The Wages of Resistance: Narita Story”, while “Flowers of Taipei” spotlights the influential filmmakers of New Taiwanese Cinema. The history of romance in film is the topic of “Love Is All” from the UK and veteran documentarian Frederick Wiseman eyeballs another fine institution in the three-hour opus “National Gallery”.
It all wraps up next Saturday with plenty of festivities to accompany “Y/Our Music”, a new Thai documentary about unusual and forgotten traditional musicians. It comes to Salaya fresh from Austin, Texas, and the South by Southwest festival.

HERE AND THERE
The fifth Salaya International Documentary Film Festival runs from tomorrow until February 28 at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and from Tuesday until next Friday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Book seats online at bit.ly/booking-for-salayadoc5. For more details, check www.Facebook.com/SalayaDoc.

Saturday, Film Archive
1pm – “The Look of Silence”
3pm – “Lady of the Lake”/“The Storm Makers”
5pm – “Flowers of Taipei” (q&a)
7pm – “Madam Phung’s Last Journey”

Sunday, Film Archive
1pm – “Echoes from the Hill”/“Nick and Chai”
3pm – “03-Flats”
5pm – “Love Is All”

Monday, Film Archive
5.30pm – “National Gallery”

Tuesday, BACC
1pm – “The Eye of the Day”
3pm – “Shape of the Moon” (q&a)
6pm – “No Word for Worry” (q&a)

Wednesday, BACC
1pm – “Echoes from the Hill”/“Nick and Chai”
3pm – “Die Before Blossom”
5pm – “Southeast Asian Cinema: When the Rooster Crows”
7pm – “The Look of Silence”

Thursday, BACC
1pm – “Madam Phung’s Last Journey”
3pm – “03-Flats”
5pm – “Position Among the Stars”
7pm – “Love Is All”

March 27, BACC
1pm – “Lady of the Lake”/“The Storm Makers”
3pm – “Diving Bell: The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol”
5pm – “National Gallery”

March 28, Film Archive
1pm – “The Wages of Resistance: Narita Story”
4pm – “Promised Paradise”
6pm – “Y/Our Music”