Invitation to write one sentence in YASMIN AHMAD'S FILMS

My book Yasmin Ahmad's Films will be available in November. It's my impressions of watching all 6 of her feature-length films, as well as many commercials, in the month of September. It's not an obituary, neither is it a conventional book of film criticism.

We are currently proofreading the manuscript, and it suddenly occurs to me that it would be nice to have the final pages of the book given over to other people's views. People who have watched and been touched, excited, tickled, by the films. (Think of this as the 'viewer's version' of the coda at the end of MUKHSIN).

So I'd like you to have your say! Please write one sentence on any one of her 6 long films:

- RABUN
- SEPET
- GUBRA
- MUKHSIN
- MUALLAF
- TALENTIME

I think each film will have 1 page, and I will try to cram in as many views as I can. Write about a specific scene, or dialogue, or performance, or the entire film. Write about how it made you feel, or how it related to you, or analyse why it works (or maybe doesn't work) for you.

Some ground rules:
1. The sentence can be in any of the languages used in the films.
2. The sentence should not be more than 20 words. If you are writing in Chinese, then no more than 20 Chinese characters.
3. Send ONLY by email to matahari.books@gmail.com with the heading MY SENTENCE, together with your name and location. Let's make this international!
4. Deadline for submission: 30 September noon (Malaysian time).
5. You can send in more than one sentence, but I will choose one per person.

Due to space constraints, I may not be able to print all the sentences. But here's a hint: try not to pick one of the more 'popular' films, and you might have a better chance lah.

We haven't decided on the retail price of the book yet. But all my writer royalties from the first edition will be donated to the Mercy - Yasmin Ahmad Fund for Children.

A 'teaser' of sorts for the book is my article for the Canadian magazine Cinema Scope here.

The cover

I don't want to say too much about the book for now. But a free copy goes to the first person who can correctly guess why I chose this particular image for the cover.

This offer is brought to you by the fact that it's Malaysia Day!

* Design by Alexdrina Chong

My article in Cinema Scope

Cinema Scope is this rather serious (but frequently gossipy) film magazine based in Canada. I have an article in the current issue. The magazine isn't available in Malaysia (as far as I know) but my article is one of those that can be read online for free free free!

Personally, I'd love to read the piece on Guru Dutt as he's one of my favourite filmmakers of all time. But that one's not online, cis! So I'll have to wait for my copy to wing it from Winnipeg, or wherever they're sending it from.

The first book to mention (and visually reference on the cover?) BODY 2 BODY

Those of you who have Body 2 Body will, of course, remember Thiam Chin's S & M - tinged story Good Job. It's one of the highlights! Now he has his own collection, which I look forward to getting.

Do you recognise this image?

I have a chapter in this very serious-looking book.

And I am in the same section as Dr. Mahathir, Musa Hitam, I-Lann's father, Shamsul AB, Nicol David, Huzir Sulaiman and Shanon Shah ;-)

Published by Khazanah Nasional, it was just launched a few hours ago and will be in bookshops next month. It's so new that the price has not been determined yet.

From screen to page

[From the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2009 issue of Quill magazine]

FROM 2000 to 2009, I made eight movies. Two of these were fiction while the rest were documentaries, hybrids of documentary/fiction, experimental, or however you want to describe things that are not multiplex-friendly. Also, I must have travelled to a few dozen film festivals by now.

In early 2009, I announced, to not much fanfare, that I would be taking a long break from filmmaking. I had a target of publishing 50 books first.

From September 2007 to September 2009, I published 10 books under my modest imprint, Matahari Books. Seven are nonfiction, two are tie-in screenplay books for films made by friends of mine, and one is an anthology that contains more fiction than nonfiction. The Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2009 is the first writers’ festival I have ever attended.

Those observant enough to notice the numbers above would see that although I could make less than an average of one movie per year, I could average five books a year (as publisher, not always as writer or editor). Movies take up much more time.

The publicity mill tends to be similar, but on different scales. Film directors and actors are interviewed, as are publishers and writers. The crucial difference is that the people doing the interviews would have either seen the films, or can convincingly say that they want to see the films. People doing the interviews for books invariably would not have had the time to read the whole book. (Journalists have to do many other things, you know, such as watch films.) Even worse, journalists, when interviewing those in the book trade, put on the type of commiserating face they use when interviewing plucky folks with debilitating illnesses, or those soliciting funds on their behalf:  “You wrote this book? Really? How … brave of you! Please don’t give up the fight! I haven’t had time to read it yet but … I’m cheering you on!”

Speaking of which, movie people actually relish publicity. Aside from the odd Stanley Kubrick or Chris Marker, filmmakers never saw a TV camera they didn’t like. There are many more examples of ‘reclusive’ writers, and even publishers who don’t get interviewed. People who go into filmmaking are invariably more social because:

Movies involve many more people whose functions sometimes overlap to an alarming degree. I once had a ‘financial controller’ tell me that an actress I had just cast was “too short.” This is because everyone needs to look busy to justify their salaries. Writers and publishers are more likely to own only one handphone per person and be seen lunching alone. This isn’t to say that one group of people is more ‘normal’ than another; they each have their own annoying quirks.

Films are pirated. Books aren’t. This means that books are so unpopular that no one wants to steal them! A blockbuster Malaysian film will sell 800,000 tickets in the first month. A blockbuster local novel (usually a Malay romance) will sell 100,000 in the first three years.

Movies need to be seen by many people in the first two weeks or it would be branded a flop. Even the tiny industry of Malaysia has caught on to the Hollywood mania of measuring first-day ticket sales, which can spark off either envy or  Schadenfreude in time for next day’s breakfast. Books are allowed a bit more time to ‘build’ an audience, because book people aren’t that much into instant gratification, or are just slow to respond.

When filmmakers get together they tend to ask, “What camera are you shooting on?” rather than any deep, philosophical questions. When book people get together, they tend to ask, “What paper are you printing on?” rather than any deep, philosophical questions.

Movies tend to shift formats. We tend to take it for granted that if we miss it in the cinema, we can catch it on TV or buy the (usually pirated) DVD later. Books tend to stay in the same format, aside from minimal cosmetic changes (hardcover to paperback, different editions, new covers). Audiobooks never really caught on, at least in this part of the world. Perhaps the biggest ontological shift will come from those e-readers, when we can afford them. Perhaps the only big format shift associated with books is the alchemical process whereby they are transformed into … movies. The Bible is probably the most adapted book by now; the author must be rolling in royalties!

Among the more conservative families, marriage to someone “in the film industry” is not encouraged, as film people are supposed to be lacking in morals. Among the more commercial families, marriage to someone “in the book industry” is not encouraged, as book people are supposed to be lacking in money.

Movies have to undergo a regimented form of censorship. You even need a permit to start shooting. You don’t need permission from anybody to publish a book in Malaysia. You don’t even need to set up a company; you can do it as an individual. When a documentary of mine ( The Last Communist) got banned, someone asked a Cabinet Minister why the book that I got the facts from (Chin Peng’s My Side of History) was not banned. His reply: “Not many people read books in Malaysia.” Since this is a guy who has written several books himself, I assume he was speaking from bitter experience. This isn’t, of course, to say that books never get banned, just that they are easier to produce and sell, at least initially. This is actually an exciting creative opportunity, but many publishers still choose to self-censor themselves to an absurd degree.

The internet has altered the way both industries operate. People watch trailers online and get so excited that they rush to the cinema. (Most of us don’t have connections that are speedy or reliable enough to download entire films.) By contrast, people spend so much time reading their many friends’ Status Updates online that they can’t be bothered to then read books.

Cinema staff tend to know about the films playing. They can even make recommendations. One hilarious example was when an usher tried to dissuade a bunch of us from watching a local action flick even after we’d bought tickets. The staff at chain bookshops, alas, can’t say much about their wares. And we really don’t have enough non-chain bookshops. People who staff independent bookshops are more informed about books, but are somehow grumpier!

The final word must go to festivals. People who go to film festivals are there to watch films. You can watch up to five films a day. As a bonus, you may get to meet the filmmakers and cast. Whereas people who go to writers’ festivals are there to watch writers. It would be a bonus to the writer if his or her book had also been read. But this is difficult, because it might take five days to read. So, in an odd way, book people are here more ‘social’ than film people, after all.

Which is another way of saying: perhaps these differences between two media are all contingent and temporary. It’s the stories that are told that will be remembered long after celluloid and pages have turned to similar-looking dust.