CINEMASIA PRESENTS ‘OUT & PROUD IN CHINA?’ AUGUST 3 DE BALIE IN AMSTERDAM

This Friday, CinemAsia presents ‘Out & Proud in China?’ during the Amsterdam Gay Pride festival – featuring the Chinese documentary “Our Story: 10-year ‘guerilla warfare’ of Beijing Queer Film Festival” followed by a discussion about LGBT life in Asia.

CinemAsia brings the diversity of Asian cinema to the attention of the Dutch audience and offers a media platform to discuss Asian topics on screen.

OUR STORY – 10-YEAR ‘GUERILLA WARFARE’ OF BEIJING QUEER FILM FESTIVAL (CHINA 2011)

Out & Proud in China? For ten years the Beijing Queer Film Festival has battled oppression and homophobia to fight for more visibility for gays and lesbian issues in China. The film documents this struggle and the ‘guerrilla’ tactics used by the festival’s organisers. Yang Yang, director of the film, has been executive director of the festival for 10 years, providing an essential space for the queer and allied communities of Beijing. The film will be screened in Chinese with English subtitles.

Director Nia Dinata’s Arisan: Sex and the City with Substance

By: Yvette Benningshof

Flashing Jakarta big city life, the pristine beaches of the Gili’s, socialites, parties, fashion, friendship and romance: you’ll find plenty in ‘Arisan!2’. But there is more to this film than meets the eye. In this Indonesian style ‘Sex and the City,’ controversial topics are tackled with humor and satire in a playful setting. The long awaited sequel of Arisan! (2003) that featured the first homosexual kiss ever in Indonesian Cinema, cheerfully carries on where the first installment left off.

Nia Dinata Wins Another One

Award winning Indonesian filmmaker, director and producer Nia Dinata received the CinemAsia 2012 Achievement Award at the CinemAsia Filmfestival in Amsterdam. She was praised ‘because through her films as a director and producer she has brought the topic of women, gays and marginalized people to the forefront in Indonesia’.

‘We have a special history with Dinata’, says festival director Doris Yeung, ‘At our first edition in 2004 we world premiered Arisan! and now eight years later we come full circle with the screening of Arisan!2 and carrying out the Achievement Award.’

Indonesian Film Maker Paul Agusta: Parts of the Heart

By: Ging Ginanjar & Emma Kwee

Paul Agusta is a film maker pur sang. Born in Jakarta in 1980, Agusta studied film in the USA, before returning to Indonesia in 2003. His new film ‘Parts of the Heart’ is, just as his previous work ‘At the Very Bottom of Everything’ (about bi-polar disorder), deeply personal and in parts autobiographical. It’s not the first time either that Agusta checked in at the Rotterdam Film Festival, as his previous films ‘Kado Hari Jadi’ (The Anniversary Gift) (2008) and ‘At the Very Bottom of Everything (2010), were featured at this acclaimed yearly film festival.

We talked with him about his last, daring story, that touches upon the in Indonesia still controversial subject of homosexuality.