Cinemata Big Screen Enduring Issues in the Digital Age – Peon + Badman + Grey Scale + Multiverse of Mekong
- Tuesday, 23 May 2023 (Day 2)
- 18:00 – 19:20 hrs (GMT+7)
- CMU Art Center – Theater
Social, economic, and political challenges over land rights, inequality, gender, elderly care, labour, and human rights persist in Asia-Pacific societies despite multi-faceted efforts to address them. ‘Enduring Issues in the Digital Age’ is a collection of four films from Malaysia and the Mekong Region highlighting how these issues and digital rights crisscross.
Peon (Trailer)
Malaysia / 2020 / Fiction / 15 mins
Directed by June Wong, Shaiful Yahya, and Syaz Zainal
Based on a true story, this film unfolds through a series of texts, voice messages, and video calls, immersing the audience in the daily grind of frontline workers. Riveting from start to end, Peon uncovers an uncomfortable truth in Malaysia.
Badman
Thailand / 2015 / Fiction / 26 mins
Directed by Maitree Chamroensuksakul
A young indigenous girl uses a video camera and other technologies to document the nefarious plan of a land grabber in Northern Thailand.
Grey Scale
Malaysia / 2022 / Documentary / 20 mins
Directed by Evelyn Teh
A single elderly woman in a gentrified community is forced to adapt to the rapidly changing world around her when authorities require app-based contact tracing amid the pandemic. A story about living alone and growing old, Grey Scale presents the quiet struggles among the elderly in their quest for independent and dignified ageing.
Multiverse of Mekong
Thailand / 2023 / Experimental-Documentary / 15 mins
Directed by Patiparn Boontarig
Multiverse of Mekong is a semi-experimental documentary that uses diverse data sets, including satellite images, information on the internet, and television news footage, generated through programming and AI image processing. The resulting data presents clear evidence of the changes happening in the Mekong River and the multidimensional impact of climate change – from past, present, to future.
Presented by Cinemata in partnership with Friends Without Borders Foundation with support from CMU Faculty of Fine Arts, Media Arts and Design, CMU Art and Culture Center, and DS Young Filmmaker.