On March 14-19, 2018, two members of Forum Lenteng, namely Hafiz and Dhuha Ramadhani were involved in the Glasgow Short Film Festival, Glasgow, Scotland with the support from Pusbang Film Kemendikbud RI. As part of the film festival’s programs, a symposium entitled “Archives, Activism, Aesthetics” was held. The symposium is a collaboration work between the Glasgow Short Film Festival, Southeast Asian Cinema Research Network (SEACRN), Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference (ASEACC ), Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of St Andrews, and Goethe Institute of Glasgow. The symposium attended by filmmakers, film activists, academics and film scholars who more specifically focused on the development of cinema in Southeast Asia. Also present with Forum Lenteng some other communities from Southeast Asia include Hanoi DocLab, Vietnam; Anti-Archive, Cambodia; Save Myanmar Cinema, Myanmar; and The Thai Film Archive, Thailand. The two-day symposium divided into two major themes. On March 16, 2018, at the CCA (Center of Contemporary Art of Glasgow), the symposium took “Archival Practices and Found Footage in Artists’ Film” as the theme. On March 17, 2018, at the Kelvin Hall Theater, the theme was “New Directions: Grassroots Film Communities and Activism.” In Panel 1: “Grassroots Film Communities and New Directions,” Forum Lenteng presents a paper entitled “Looking at the Archives, Looking at Memory Objectively. ” Hafiz explained about the works of Forum Lenteng which is related to the archives and how Forum Lenteng responded to it. In the presentation presented some individual projects as well as collaborative projects from Forum Lenteng. The first work to be presented is Hafiz’s film entitled “Behind The Flickering Light: The Archive” (2013). This film explores the archiving activity done by Misbach Yusa Biran through Sinematek Indonesia which he formed. The second project presented is Videobase which examines the history of video technology in Indonesia and its context with socio-cultural development. The third work presented is “Golden Memories” (2018) which records the development of home movies in Indonesia. Looking for its traces through meetings with Kwee Zwan Liang and Rusdi Attamimi. “Golden Memories” seeks to delve further into the aesthetics and ontology of home movies in addition to how cinematic cultures built by the public. In related to archives, especially missing archives, Hafiz also describes Akbar Yumni’s work in progress, entitled “Watching Turang.” Akbar packed a reconstruction effort for Turang (1957) film by Bachtiar Siagian into the performance art. Hafiz also presented Forum Lenteng response to the archive that packed into an exhibition: Kultursinema. Kultursinema is an effort of Forum Lenteng to collect, to map out, and read the discourse in the development of Indonesian cinema history. Positioned Kultursinema as an experimentation space to seek out other possibilities in presenting cinema archives, gives meaning to the archives as a political statement. Hafiz’s presentation concludes with a presentation of Otty Widasari’s long-term project exploring the relationship between film, archive, documentation action and representational, and reproductive phenomena. Otty responded to the colonial archive, about how the camera presence in Indonesia with the colonial perspective behind it. Reading history as something that is never rigid and simple, provide as many possible ways to the public in reading the history through film archive. The Symposium is one of five programs focusing on Southeast Asian cinema. The other four programs are Kalampag Tracking Agency: Experimental Films & Videos From The Philippines (1985-2015), Death and Killing in Southeast Asia, focus on Nguyễn Trinh Thi, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s All-Nighter epic program. The entire programs of the Glasgow Short Film Festival end on March 18, 2018. The festival closed with Awards Night at Civic House. The award-winning films screened that night. The Awards Night’s atmosphere was cosy and warm. The stage was made simple, the seats are arranged tightly indoors. Outdoors, the wind was blowing with snow. Year Glasgow, Scotland
2018
“Archives, Activism, Aesthetic” A Reading Effort on Southeast Asian Cinema Culture
