Flinders University Film Series

Emerging Asian Australian Filmmakers - OzAsia

Presented by the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences initiative SA: The Festival State

A showcase of vibrant works by emerging Asian-Australian independent filmmakers, exploring concepts of identity, place, and belonging. Curated by Nicholas Godfrey, Flinders University College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Curator's statement: Nicholas Godfrey

It seems significant that Allison Chhorn, Matthew Victor Pastor and Audrey Lam are emerging as three of our most arresting up-and-coming filmmakers.

These three Asian-Australians use cinema to explore aspects of migrant identity in distinctive ways: Pastor’s relentless urgency and continual stylistic reinvention; Lam’s impressionistic documentary-fiction hybridity across mixed media; and Chhorn’s precise formal minimalism, which arrives at its own place of interiority. Whereas the poetics of Chhorn and Lam are delivered in hushed tones, the stylistically maximal Pastor prefers to put his points across with an exclamation mark. We would do well to pay attention.

The Plastic House + two short films by Audrey Lam

7pm, 24 October 2019
Iris Cinema
Tickets $10

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The Plastic House (Allison Chhorn, 2019)

Running time: 45 mins

Synopsis: After the passing of her parents, a girl takes over the family farm by herself. As she becomes absorbed in the process and ritual of working in the green house, the precarious weather threatens to destroy this new life alone.

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Filmmaker’s statement, director Allison Chhorn:

The Plastic House reflects the cultural mentality of a 2nd generation young adult having grown up in Australia with Cambodian parents - imagining what would be left after her parents have passed. Evoking hauntology and blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, the film captures the inherited life of working in a greenhouse.

A Pocketful of Song (Audrey Lam, 2018)

Running time: 17 mins

Synopsis: A bustling market street chimes with the gentle chaos of a lone, decades-old collectible coin and stamp shop in its midst. The elderly shop owner shares stories of the stamps and the world passing by.

A River Twice (Audrey Lam, 2017)

Running time: 15 mins

Synopsis: A boat making its way along a river mirrors a father’s small turns of thought about his daughter and the passing years.

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Filmmaker’s statement, director Audrey Lam:

These two films began with an impulse to film something I had heard about anecdotally – a friend’s red boat, my great-aunt’s drawings. I liked thinking about where those things might belong in a life, and how rich and exhilarating time and place is to how we see ourselves.

Allison Chhorn and Audrey Lam are guests of the festival.

6:30pm, 25 October 2019 Mercury Cinema

Repent or Perish! (Matthew Victor Pastor, 2018)

Running time: 84 mins

Synopsis: Amos is a young gay man, his sister Jewel is a drug dealer and their father Julian is a conservative Filipino Christian. Set over the course of 24 hours, their lives will intersect. Repent or Perish, what choice does this family have?

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Filmmaker’s statement, director Matthew Victor Pastor:

Repent or Perish! is a coming of age film set 3 days before the 2017 SSM plebiscite. It’s a true blue story made by young Asian Australians who have written, directed, produced a new vision giving a youthful, authentic and historical voice in the Australian cinematic landscape

6.30pm, 25 October 2019
Mercury cinema
Tickets $10

Matthew Victor Pastor is a guest of the festival.

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