KLEX: The 1st Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film and Video Festival

22nd to 25th October 2010 Kuala Lumpur

The very first installment of KLEX took a year plus of preparation and took place from 22nd to 25th October 2010 at two venues, namely the Annexe Gallery (Central Market) for majority of screenings and at the HELP University College, hosted by Kelab SeniFilem Malaysia for the Malaysian Program of KLEX.

KLEX is a platform for the innovative and experimental cinema. Featuring a wide range of works from Malaysia and other countries, the aim is to introduce the contemporary works by the cutting-edge film and videomakers to the Malaysian audience. The festival also aims to work as a forum for the local film and video artists to discuss, exchange, and explore the ideas in cinema art.

KLEX 2010 has received over 180 submissions for the 2010 festival from all over the world – Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, USA,
Canada, Australia and Europe. The curatorial team has enjoyed the viewing and discussion process, learning the contemporary trends and issues in these works. The selection committee has selected 30 plus works from both emerging and established artists in the KLEX Open Programs.

The festival consists of 3 Open Programs, 3 invited Guest Programs (Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines), and one Contemporary Malaysian Program.
The first festival is very humble in terms of budget and scale, and very much a learning process for the KLEX core team of organizers. Through this first attempt, it is hoped that the local communities would begin to understand KLEX’s initiatives and hopefully would provide more support in the future.

The KLEX team would like to express gratitude to the co-organizers Da Huang Pictures and SA Media, partner Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia, Images Festival and all the
participating filmmaker and videomakers, The Annexe Gallery and to the Matahati Art Fund who have given great assistance to the 1st KLEX 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Festival Programs

Open Call Program I: Tell It Differently

There are many ways to tell a story. Jean-Luc Godard famously said that a story
should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but it does not necessarily have to be
in that linear order. So it is with experimental video and film that explore new
possibilities in narration, in order to succeed the formulaic and the familiar
of mainstream cinema. This programme presents four video works that exemplify
how artists and filmmakers have experimented with the narrative structure. (Simon Soon)

Case Study (George Drivas, Germany)
Cold Noodles (Kirsten Tan, Singapore)
Yangqui WALKER And The OPTICAL REVOLUTION (Kathryn Ramey, USA)
Tony Conrad, DreMinimalist (Mary Lucier, USA)

Open Call Program II: Social Lens

The way we understand ourselves is shaped by our immediate environment we
encounter on a daily basis. The social turn in modern and contemporary art
acknowledges the importance of examining the role of art in relation to our cultural
reality. These works often touch on a variety of cultural and historical issues often from different positions. Collectively, this programme highlights the importance of
experimental video and film as a social lens, and its ability to ask complex questions
and seek for nuanced answers through a variety of strategies beyond mere documentation and representation of facts. (Simon Soon)

First Time (Sylvia Ong, Malaysia)
This Way (Wasunan Hutawach, Thailand)
How To Clean A Puddle (Roland Wegerer, Austria)
Stochastics (David Kidman, France)
24/7 (Alison Khor, Malaysia)
Stacking…Stacking…Stacking (Sarah Buckius, USA)
Universal Tourist (Christin Bolewski, Germany)
Inner Klance (Lemeh42, Italy)
5 Lessons And 9 Questions About Chinatown (Shelly Silver, USA)
Living In The Box-Dimension (Kentaro Taki, Japan)

Open Call Programme III: Rhyme and Rhythm

This programme looks at the basic building blocks of the filmic and video medium,
by showcasing a number of artists whose primary concerns are the artistic, engaging
with material, formal and conceptual aspects of their practice. These include the use
and manipulation of found footage; the montage of photo stills; or a playful
examination of abstraction can be found in graphic form of engagements. Finally,
while many of these artists sought to capture the visual rhythm of their poetic
experimentation, they too highlighted the aural resonance that is intimately tied to the visual. (Simon Soon)

Experiment for Animated Graphic Score (Yoshida Haruka, Japan)
Holy Ghost (Pedro Maia, Protugal)
Sharing A Beautiful Sunset (Jasper Elings, Netherland)
Flyscreen (Richard Tuohy, Australia)
Every Four Frames (Alberto Cabrera Bernal, Spain)
Koh (Adam R.Levins, Canada)
De Luce 1 : Vegetare (Janis Crystal Lipzin, USA)
Between Showers (Hirotoshi Iwasaki, Japan)
Varfix (Kotaro Tanaka, Japan)
Daylight And The Sun (Karen Johannesen, USA)
Cotton Sugar (Tsen-Chu Hsu, USA)
Trapped Inside Pixels (Sarah Buckius, USA)
Little Fissures (Sheri Wills, USA)
Wound Footage (Thorsten Fleisch, Germany)
Cet Air La (Marie Losier, USA)

Guest Programme: Taiwan Program – Confronting

Home Movie is a kind of very special film, it has its own unique forms and language.
Many experimental filmmakers, home moviemakers and documentary filmmakers
like to imitate or against it. In this programme, we’ve selected Taiwanese works that
utilize this strategy in these few years, including diary films, travelogue and personal
documentary. However, confronting our family is not an easy task, confronting
experimental films is also challenging. But no matter how hard it is, please do sit
down and think more about family and film. (Liu Yong Hau and Tony Wu)

Guest Program: Indonesia Program – Selection of OK Video Festival

In the last ten years, video became a medium that is very familiar to young artists and young directors in Indonesia. The era of democracy and freedom of expression is
celebrated by the users of the medium as a way for the actualization and media
criticism. Short films and video art is highly developed and started to become an
alternative entertainment for the young generation. Social, political and cultural
themes wrapped in language that is very intimate and different from what we think
about using this medium in the mainstream media. (Ruang Rupa, Jakarta)

Guest Program: The Philippines Program

KLEX is grateful and appreciative to have featured a previously curated program by
Philippine/Canadian film critic, the late Alexis Tioseco. The program shares with us
a brief survey of film and video work threading through both a local and regional/global social-political-cultural critique of the past as well as a more recent
and contemporary exploration of themes, issues and methods in the Philippines.

Merging from the Waves: Selected Malaysian Contemporary Works (Invited)

The program showcases the diversity of styles and contexts of Malaysian contemporary works in experimental cinema. There are works focusing on elements
of formality, playing with the physical nature and visual rhythm of the medium. However, even though in visual styles these works share some similarities, but they are quite different in terms of content, investigating various issues such as memory, history and femininity. On the other hand, performing video artists utilize the notion of “video as a recording tool” to create performance work specifically for video. Artists live in the society, and the issues and events happening in the community become their concerns. Several works in this program share with us their specific social concerns. Lastly, the usage of found-footage has been a way for artists to experiment with the rules of narrative structure in conventional cinema. Experimental video artists sometimes remix the found footage with an attempt to reconstruct a new narrative. (Kok Siew Wai and Au Sow Yee)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The KLEX Committee would like thanks the following individuals and organizations for their support:

The Annexe Gallery, Central Market
Chris Chong Chan Fui
Da Huang Pictures
The Edge Daily
IMAGES Festival, Canada
Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia
Matahati Art Funds
Nelson Henricks
Pablo de Ocampo
Ruang Rupa, Indonesia
SA Media
Scott Miller Berry
Studio in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur (SiCKL)
Sin Chew Jit Poh
Tan Chui Mui
Tony Wu
Wong Tuck Cheong
All Participating Filmmakers & Videomakers!

The KLEX 2010 Committee are:

Festival Advisor: Tomonari Nishikawa
Festival Directors: Au Sow Yee and Kok Siew Wai
Programmers: Au Sow Yee, Kok Siew Wai, Simon Soon
Videos/Film Selection Committee: Au Sow Yee, Kok Siew Wai, Simon Soon, SA Media
Funding & Sponsor: Yap Sau Bin
Technical Assistant: Goh Lee Kwang
Publicity: SA Media & Au Sow Yee
Graphic Designer: Tsuji Lam
Documentation: Kok Kai Foong