The FreedomFilmFest wants you to help capture our Democratic Space! FFFwill be holding a photography exhibition to coincide with the film screenings over the three day events in KL, JB, Kuching and Penang. FFF would like to invite all shutter bugs, photo fanatics and all people who proclaim to have a large lense to submit a photo which you think best illustrates/represents or evokes the theme “Democratic Space”. The best will be picked and exhibited during the festival. What best embodies your idea of ‘Democratic Space’; an empty space, a crowded room, a place you can express yourself freely, a place which encourages the exchange of ideas, or a place which allows a quiet contemplative meditation? Are there any such places left in Malaysia? Can we re-capture our democratic space? Please email your photos, no more than three submissions per person (high resolution not required as only for viewing purposes) to freedomfilmfest@komas.org.

Title: A Human Request

Director: Eugene Schlegel, Christophh Willumeit
Synopsis: When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted 1 December 1948, eight states abstained from voting arguing that certain articles were not acceptable in their cultures. To this day, certain positions within legal philosophy doubt the universality of human rights. The film looks at the history of the codification of human rights by highlighting some of the debated points and the respective arguments for and against them. Winner of the 2nd Goethe Institute’s International Short Film Competition – All Human beings are born free and equal.
Length: 13 minutes
Country: Germany

Title: Anna – Seven Years on the Frontline

Director: Masha Nokikova
Synopsis: Anna Politkovskaya was killed in front of her apartment on 7 October 2006. She was a lone voice of dissent in Russia, criticising Vladimir Putin’s actions and meticulously following the Chechen war.
Whoever killed her thought they could shut her up forever, yet Politkovskaya’s words have survived her tragic death and are paradoxically more powerful than ever. This portrait of contemporary Russia reveals its contradictions and the problems afflicting democracy in the country.
Length: 78 minutes
Country: -

Title: Burning Memories

Director: S. Sommetharan
Synopsis: Burning Memories is about the burning down of Jafna’s oldest library, widely regarded by the Tamils as an act of cultural vandalism, was a deliberate destruction of 97,000 books, considered as the best collection of Tamil literature in Asia, including many irreplaceable manuscripts.
Length: 50 minutes
Country: -

Title: Black Road

Director: William Neesen
Synopsis: The December 2004 tsunami suddenly turned the isolated Indonesian province of Aceh into a household name. Yet the deeper story of the Acehnese and their long struggle for independence remains largely unknown. Filmed over four years, The Black Road is the painful, harrowing account of a journalist determined to find the truth and tell the world.
Length: 52 minutes
Country: -

Title: Dragons Beget Dragons

Director: Aruabu Darmawan
Synopsis: Director Ariani Darmawan poses this question to herself as she goes on a quest to discover the music of her heritage as a “Tionghoa Peranakan” by looking at the Gambang Kromong – an acculturative form of music adapted from various ethnicities in Indonesia. The Gambang Kromong melody, of Chinese musical notations, was introduced by the Chinese Indonesians as the Chinese musical instruments were slowly adapted.
Length: 60 minutes
Country: -

Title: Tiffin

Director: Al Lene Chor
Synopsis: Tiffin is a beautiful short narrative film that traces the changes in the landscpare, hearts and minds of vibrant Malaysia over a span of a decade. Shanti is a poor Indian girl, born into the life of a servant for a kind Chinese grandmother, Nai Nai, who runs a tiffin carrier food delivery business. Over the years, Shanti grows up under Nai Nai’s love and affection despite their social and class differences. However an unfortunate incident one day forces them to decide about what family loyalty really means.
Length: 14 minutes
Country: -

Title: Dad, why did you cut down the banana tree? (Ayah, kenapa tebang pokok pisang?)

Director: Namron
Synopsis: Hassan, an 8 year old boy, witnessed the financial difficulties his family had to go through when they were forced to move from their home in the village to the city. Hassan’s family was not the only one that was affected when rich investors bought their village land.
Interspersed with conversations in the coffee stall, the road side, and a radio announcement, the story’s main thrust of the impact of NEP (New Economic Policy) on everyday folks, particularly on Hassan’s father, was deftly weaved together by the film maker.
Length: 20 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: War on Democracy

Director: John Pilger
Synopsis: Focusing on the political state of Latin America, John Pilger’s latest film, “War On Democracy” is a rebuke of both the United States’ intervention in foreign countries’ domestic politics.The film uses archive footage to support its claim that democracy has been wiped out in country after country in Latin America since the 1950s.
Length: 97 minutes
Country: -

Title: Traffic Trafik

Director: MTV
Synopsis: Ana, Eka and Min Aung have all been trafficked from their home lands to foreign countries into forced labour. Their stories are told along side a trafficker, a young man who pays for sex, an anti-trafficking police officer, and a woman who runs a shelter for abused victims. The film gives an insight into the realities of trafficking, addresses the part we all play in the issue, and give information on how to protect ourselves.
Length: 25 minutes
Country: -

Title: Breaking Labour

Director: Tenaganita
Synopsis: The tragic stories of several foreign victims of labor trafficking and abuse in Malaysia.
Length: 30 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Running

Director: Mien Lor
Synopsis: Refugees running from their homelands to Malaysia for safety only to find themselves running again…
Length: 30 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Voices from The Forest

Director: Productions / Gecko
Synopsis: Non-timber forest produce (NTFP) spell a critical source of income for indigenous people and forest-dwelling communities who are among the poorest of the poor. Not only do the NTFPs play a crucial role in the livelihood of these people, but from a key incentive to conserving the forests. Moreover NTFPs are woven in with the social and cultural fabric of these communities.
Length: 30 minutes
Country: -

Title: The Indigenous People of Knasaimos

Director: Telapak / Gecko
Synopsis: At present Indonesian forests are in a very dangerous situation due to massive exploitation that has happened in the past couple of years. Every year, areas as big as three times the island of Bali are being destroyed. On the other hand there is still hope, especially in the ancestral forests that are being managed by the indigenous people. Forests for them mean not only the number of standing stock, but it is related to their religion, wisdoms and many other kinds of socio-cultural aspects.
Length: 32 minutes
Country: Indonesia

Title: What Rainforest?

Director: Ketapang Pictures
Synopsis: When bulldozers mowed over the ancestral farmlands of Kampung Lebor, Segan Anak Degon stood his ground and defended his land. Now, he is the only person out of 101 families whose land is left intact andunaffected by the oil palm plantation. However, Segan is the rare few who managed to halt the feverish onslaught of oil palm advancement that threatens to devastate the embattled Sarawak forested landscape.
Length: 36 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: One Nation Under Lee

Director: Seelen Palay
Synopsis: One Nation Under Lee is a documentary about Lee Kuan Yew and how he iron-fistedly subjugated an entire nation in the guise of democracy. The materials in this film are not those you can find in our history textbooks.
Length: 45 minutes
Country: Singapore

Title: Mari Kita Beraktivism (Let’s be An Activist)

Director: Anna Har / KOMAS
Synopsis: Mari Kita Beraktivism is a series of short films that tell the stories of ordinary folk whose lives have been transformed by their experiences of human rights.
Length: 45 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title:Sambal Belachan in San Francisco

Director: Madeleine Lim
Synopsis: Sambal Belachan in San Francisco contains intimate interviews with three Singaporean women who emigrated to live openly as lesbians share their feelings of exclusion both from their families and culture of origin and the United States. This rich film raises provocative questions about the nature of home and belonging, and speaks compellingly for a community whose voices are seldom heard.
Length:25 minutes
Country: -

Title: Pang Yau

Director: Amir Muhammad
Synopsis: Against the bustling backdrop of Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, a Malay-Muslim narrator reminisces about a teenage relationship between himself and an ethnic Chinese classmate. “Pangyau,” the Cantonese word for friend, is not just the story of a close friendship, but a prism through which the writer gets to examine his feelings about the the ways in which race and religion have been used in the national socio-political discourse.
Length: 13 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: It’s Over

Director: Lee Jung-a
Synopsis: A love triangle between three Korean high school students leads to a surprise ending, at least for one of them.
Length: 13 minutes
Country: -

Title: Drowned Forest, Damned Lives up

Director: Colin Nicholas – COAC
Synopsis: Drowned Forest, Damned Lives illustrates the potential destruction of the Lakum forests and the displacement of the Chewong Temuan tribe in Peninsular Malaysia due to the Kelau Dam project. A process and project that is costly and necessity is highly questionable in view of other sustainable and cheaper alternatives.
Length: 30 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Bye Bye Buyat

Director: JATAM
Synopsis: Depicting the plight of the Buyat Pante community facing hardships, disease and conflicts caused by a large scale mining project. After much struggle to address their issue, the whole community had opted to move to an area of their choice leaving behind the uninhabitable place they once called home.
Length: 45 minutes
Country: -

Title: When Will My Religion Be Mine?

Director: Manesh Nesaratnam, Article 11
Synopsis: A short but poignant documentary addressing the issues surrounding freedom of religion in Malaysia.
Length: 12 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Qalam

Director: Hadi Koh
Synopsis: Tells the tale of a Buddhist monk in search of enlightenment.
Length: 10 minutes
Country: -

Title: Kombong Veiled

Director: Gabriela Krista Luch – ST Exposure
Synopsis: A dialogue with Muslim women, who articulate their experiences and struggles while wearing the veil in a deeply religious and politically fractured contemporary Philippine society.
Length: 23 minutes
Country: -

Title: Promised Paradise

Director: Leonar Refel Helmrich
Synopsis: The Jakarta-based Indonesian puppeteer and troubadour Agus Nur Amal travels to Bali to call to account the people who were responsible for the bomb attack on a nightclub there on 12 October 2002. Like in his theatre shows, humour is his main weapon. But people stop laughing when his shadow play about the WTC disaster changes into images of new bomb attacks in Indonesia. The film uses ingenious editing to have Agus talk with the brain behind the attack in a “TV interview.”
Length: 50 minutes
Country: -

Title: Earth Whisper

Director: Amel Mardoquio
Synopsis: Earth Whisper is about the sad plight of deaf and mute children In Mindanao who are pawned in the war as child soldiers. Their lives changed for the better when they met a mysterious teacher from far-away who introduced them that education will liberate them from their hopelessness.
Length: 130 minutes
Country: -

Title: Who Speaks for Me?

Director: Justin Johari
Synopsis: A short documentary which deals with the question of Freedom of Expression with regards to “sensitive issues” in Malaysia. In light of Namewee’s Negarakuku and past years’ issues surrounding religion, the documentary will feature a Hip Hop group, D&A attempting to explore the possibilities of addressing these “sensitive issues” through music.
Length:30 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Pilihanraya Umum Malaysia ke-12: Demokerasi atau rebutan kerusi

Director: Abror Rivai
Synopsis: This documentary highlights the main issues in the recent general election in Malaysia namely the cancellation of the usage of indellible ink at the last minute and also looks at what were some of the factors that brought about change in the last election. It also provides an idea of what else citizens need to do to ensure a better system of democracy in Malaysia.
Length: 30 minutes
Country: Malaysia

Title: Pecah Lobang

Director: Poh Si Teng
Synopsis: Pecah Lobang explores what it’s like to be a Muslim transsexual sex worker in Malaysia. Shot in the Chow Kit red light district, the documentary revolves around Natasha, a Muslim Mak Nyah, who refuses to live life as a man. Unable to secure employment because of discrimination, Natasha turns to sex work and lives in constant fear of the police and religious authorities.
Crossdressing is a crime under the Syariah court system for Muslims and the penalties are severe. But it wasn’t always so. How did Malaysia become so heavy-handed on the transsexual community?
Length: 30 minutes
Country: Malaysia