For two years now, the Asian Hot Shots Festival has been bringing a wide berth of independent Asian cinema to Berlin. The festival has served as a platform for cultural exchange between Germany and Asia in the fields of film and video art. On March 30, Monday, starting at 7 PM, the Asian Hot Shots festival will be making a brief stop at Mogwai Cinematheque. In its first ever foray outside Germany, the festival will be exhibiting its unique brand of eclectic Asian cinema to the Filipino people.
The festival will be showing two features and a program of short films. The schedule is as follows:
7 PM
THE LEGEND OF SHIVA AND PARVATI
Germany/India 2008, Krishna Saraswati, 85 min
Tracing back the Indian legend of Shiva and Parvati, this movie recounts a powerful love story written by life, which takes us from a small German village into the rough landscape of the Himalayas. Far away from the beach towns populated by hippies, a young Western woman meets an Indian ascetic and falls in love with him. 30 years later, their son seeks their traces. This film won the first ever Manfred Durniok prize, an award given to a film for outstanding achievement is biculturalism in film.
9 PM
Shorts Programme
HOOLAHOOP SOUNDINGS - Winner 2nd Prize Green Chilies Audience Award 2009
Indonesia 2008, Edwin, 7 min
It is a story of a girl who hula-hoops to let customers of phone sex hear the noise. It is a remade film of a graduate work by Joel Coen in college.
SUKRIT’S SUNDAYS
India 2008, Vasant Nath, 8 min
The magic of a simple ritual used to bring him and his grandfather together every Sunday for as long as he can remember.
EVOLVING IDENTITIES POST-INDEPENDENCE
India 2008, Elvis D’Silva, 1min
Using animated text, photographs and dynamic music, the film generates imagery from the lives of people that represent different facets of India. As characters appear in the frame, icons and images distinct to them highlight their evolving identities.
LAINER
Germany/China 2007, Dana Löffelholz & Anna Intemann, 8 min
Out of the heat into the frying pan. Long-term unemployed Rainer from Berlin tries to find a lucky new life in Beijing. However, this culture is completely alien to him.
SAVING MOM AND DAD
India 2007, Kartik Singh, 14 min
Eight-year- old Ravi learns at school that non-believers in Christ will go to hell. Knowing his parents are not Christian, his challenge is “Saving Mom and Dad.”
SHOPPING CART BOY
Taiwan 2007, Hou Chi-jan, 21 min
A love story between a supermarket employee and a shopping cart, the film tells a post-industrial allegory set on the fringes of an urban jungle of mega-marts.
A VERY SLOW BREAKFAST
Indonesia 2002, Edwin, 6 min
The film explores feelings about individuality and the loss of family values. An attempt to redefine the meaning of family in the changing realm of modernity.
KARA: THE DAUGHTER OF A TREE
Indonesia 2005, Edwin, 7 min
Kara’s mother has been killed and her father has disappeared. The intrusion of a journalist into her isolated life prompts her to seek her mother’s killer and an ultimate answer.
GANDHI AT THE BAT
USA 2006, Stephanie Argy & Alec Boehm, 11 min
In 1933 Gandhi made a top-secret trip to the United States. Now at last, newly unearthed newsreel footage proves the wild rumors true? And does it show? Gandhi is playing Baseball!
11 PM
HELL’S GROUND – ZIBAHKHANA
Pakistan 2007, Omar Ali Khan, 78 min
Zibahkhana is the first modern horror film to be shot in Pakistan. It breaks all of the rules of local productions and was made entirely independently. In the spirit of horror comics, the film tells the story of five teens who get lost on their way to a rock concert and then fall into the clutches of a family of backwoods killers. It includes a splattering of social commentary and several slices of dark humor, viewed from a distinctly Pakistani perspective.
So stop by Mogwai Cinematheque on March 30, and experience a branch of Asian cinema that you’ve never seen before.
The festival will be showing two features and a program of short films. The schedule is as follows:
7 PM
THE LEGEND OF SHIVA AND PARVATI
Germany/India 2008, Krishna Saraswati, 85 min
Tracing back the Indian legend of Shiva and Parvati, this movie recounts a powerful love story written by life, which takes us from a small German village into the rough landscape of the Himalayas. Far away from the beach towns populated by hippies, a young Western woman meets an Indian ascetic and falls in love with him. 30 years later, their son seeks their traces. This film won the first ever Manfred Durniok prize, an award given to a film for outstanding achievement is biculturalism in film.
9 PM
Shorts Programme
HOOLAHOOP SOUNDINGS - Winner 2nd Prize Green Chilies Audience Award 2009
Indonesia 2008, Edwin, 7 min
It is a story of a girl who hula-hoops to let customers of phone sex hear the noise. It is a remade film of a graduate work by Joel Coen in college.
SUKRIT’S SUNDAYS
India 2008, Vasant Nath, 8 min
The magic of a simple ritual used to bring him and his grandfather together every Sunday for as long as he can remember.
EVOLVING IDENTITIES POST-INDEPENDENCE
India 2008, Elvis D’Silva, 1min
Using animated text, photographs and dynamic music, the film generates imagery from the lives of people that represent different facets of India. As characters appear in the frame, icons and images distinct to them highlight their evolving identities.
LAINER
Germany/China 2007, Dana Löffelholz & Anna Intemann, 8 min
Out of the heat into the frying pan. Long-term unemployed Rainer from Berlin tries to find a lucky new life in Beijing. However, this culture is completely alien to him.
SAVING MOM AND DAD
India 2007, Kartik Singh, 14 min
Eight-year- old Ravi learns at school that non-believers in Christ will go to hell. Knowing his parents are not Christian, his challenge is “Saving Mom and Dad.”
SHOPPING CART BOY
Taiwan 2007, Hou Chi-jan, 21 min
A love story between a supermarket employee and a shopping cart, the film tells a post-industrial allegory set on the fringes of an urban jungle of mega-marts.
A VERY SLOW BREAKFAST
Indonesia 2002, Edwin, 6 min
The film explores feelings about individuality and the loss of family values. An attempt to redefine the meaning of family in the changing realm of modernity.
KARA: THE DAUGHTER OF A TREE
Indonesia 2005, Edwin, 7 min
Kara’s mother has been killed and her father has disappeared. The intrusion of a journalist into her isolated life prompts her to seek her mother’s killer and an ultimate answer.
GANDHI AT THE BAT
USA 2006, Stephanie Argy & Alec Boehm, 11 min
In 1933 Gandhi made a top-secret trip to the United States. Now at last, newly unearthed newsreel footage proves the wild rumors true? And does it show? Gandhi is playing Baseball!
11 PM
HELL’S GROUND – ZIBAHKHANA
Pakistan 2007, Omar Ali Khan, 78 min
Zibahkhana is the first modern horror film to be shot in Pakistan. It breaks all of the rules of local productions and was made entirely independently. In the spirit of horror comics, the film tells the story of five teens who get lost on their way to a rock concert and then fall into the clutches of a family of backwoods killers. It includes a splattering of social commentary and several slices of dark humor, viewed from a distinctly Pakistani perspective.
So stop by Mogwai Cinematheque on March 30, and experience a branch of Asian cinema that you’ve never seen before.
