ON THIS PAGE
- L’avamposto by Edoardo Morabito
- Snow in Midsummer by Chong Keat Aun
THE OUTPOST
The outpost of the title is that of Christopher Clark, a Scottish eco-warrior who aims to realize a personal model of utopian society based on the perfect balance between nature and technology in the heart of the Amazon. And who, above all, chooses to oppose the relentless destruction of the forest by organizing a Pink Floyd concert inside the green hell, hoping to convince the Brazilian government to establish a reserve. “A visionary,” which Edoardo Morabito calls “my antidote to disillusionment” and which he puts at the centre of a story “a journey” into the contradictions of the present that comes precisely ten years after I fantasmi di San Berillo, Best Italian Documentary at the Turin Film Festival. A second work behind the camera by a director who, as an editor, had seen ‘his’ movies awarded in Venice: Liberami by Federica Di Giacomo (Best Orizzonti film in 2016), Belluscone. Una storia siciliana (Special Jury Prize at Orizzonti in 2014) and La mafia non è più quello di una volta (Special Jury Prize in 2019), both directed by Franco Maresco.
Mattia Pasquini
SHOW IN MIDSUMMER
Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, 2023. Director Chong Keat Aun. Starring Wan Fang, Pearlly Chua, Rexen Cheng, Pauline Tan, Peter Yu, Alvin Wong. Running time 116‘. Production: Janji Pictures Production
Ah Eng (Wan Fang) has been trapped in the “513” timeline of 1969 (in Mandarin culture, May 13 is indeed 513) for 49 years. On that day in 1969, a riot broke out in Kuala Lumpur due to post-election tensions. During a street theatre’s performance of the Chinese opera Snow in June, whose heroine Dou E (Chua Pearlly), played by the company’s head playwright, is unjustly convicted and killed, the riot was suppressed in blood. In the excitement of those moments, Ah Eng and her mother (Pauline Tan) are rescued by the theatre company but lose contact with her brother and father. In 2018, Ah Eng returned to Kuala Lumpur and unexpectedly encountered “Dou E” at the May 13 victims’ cemetery: Cemetery 513. Malaysian filmmaker and composer Chong Keat Aun challenges the silence about a forgotten massacre by imaginatively bringing it to light.
Oscar Cosulich
