KL FILMFEST, SCREAMFEST INDO AND JIFFEST 07

It's the season to watch movies I guess. As a movie fan, such news are like locating the holy grail - we live only to watch movies - great ones, bad ones, crap ones, fantastic ones. So when there's a few film festivals literally at your doorsteps - it should be great fun. So, if you don't know, today, begins the KL International Film Fest or KLIFF. Yes yes...a film festival, an international film festival...you don't know anything about it? Don't blame yourself, not many know about it...including industry professionals. Yes and Majid Majidi is in town to give a talk about story telling. When? Where? Whaaa? Well check out their website - www.klfilmfest.com - simple enough website - with schedules of workshops listed - mostly about animation and 3D - again the hope that Malaysia will one day be a global animation hub...but heck..there's no film screening schedule!! What's the point on having an international film festival when you can't get hold of the film screening schedule? I know there's about two dozen movies participating from all over the world - really unknown movies except for 1957 Hati Malaya representing Malaysia - but if someone wants to know what movies to watch, where's the info?
Unlike the First Indonesia Horror Film Fest - ScreamfestIndo starting today (the 28th of November) in Jakarta. An official offshoot of the ScreamFest Horror Film Festival in the US, the festival looks and sounds fun. Check out their website at www.screamfestindo.com. Dozens of horror, thriller, fantasy, anime and sci-fi movies lines up for movie fans! It's really a festival for movie goers unlike KLIFF who was organised for whom?? The opening film tonight in Jakarta is Guillermo Del Toro's latest movie The Orphanage. And then the screening goes on and on for five days plus a workshop helmed by Indon director Rizal Mantovani and featuring top horrormeister Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator series). The workshops were fully booked weeks ahead.
And then a week later, in Jakarta, begins the 9th Jakarta International Film Festival - yes the ninth year! Ten days of movie watching!! Checkout their website at www.jiffest.org. And surprise surprise - our neighbours are actually screening plenty of Malaysian movies - old and new! Look at the list of Malaysian movies to be screened: Bujang Lapok, Labu Labi, Laksaman Do Re Mi, Hang Tuah, Mukhsin, Chalanngai and The Last Communist.
Then the screenings of more than 40 movies!!! And movies of note - if you happen to be in Jakarta at that time check out the following movies - Hula Girls from Japan, La Vie En Rose from France, Sicko from USA, Persepolis from USA and Indigenes from France/Algeria. Just check out their screening list - you can just drown yourself in movies over the next two weeks in Jakarta at the Blitz Megaplex.
And the JIFFEST workshops are worldclass - participants of the screenwriting workshops stand to win more than 35,000 Euros for their work! Enough to complete or begin shooting their own masterpieces. This is what a true festival is about - getting the public - both general public and those in the local film industry to participate. KLIFF? Don't really know who they organised it for. Too bad we don't know where and when to catch any of the movies participating in the KLIFF here at our own backyard.