Klymax Discotheque hosts film series dedicated to Asian & diasporic cinema
A collaboration between NOWNESS ASIA & Potato Head throughout May, featuring films that span grief, postcolonial identity, environmental displacement, queer love & more
NOWNESS ASIA and Potato Head have joined forces for a film series at Klymax Discotheque, spotlighting filmmakers from across Asia and the Asian diaspora.
The series, focusing on the theme of regeneration, runs across four dates in May, the first of which (on May 7) already took place and included a panel discussion with practitioners working across film, visual art, sound, cultural heritage, and queer cinema, touching on how artists from the region are navigating identity, subculture, and creative practice today.
The line-up draws from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Australia, and the United States.
Directors taking part in this series are Kitty Yeung, Sebastian Carandang, Prim Patnasiri, Marc Aziz Ressang, Nathaniel Brown, Kornpat Pawakranond, Riar Rizaldi, Rose Ng, Lei Lei, David Tse, Kathleen Malay, and Natasha Tontey.
Thematically, the films cover a lot of ground: grief held within traditional funeral rituals, food as a container for memory and shared identity, and coastal communities in Java facing displacement as their villages sink into the sea.
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Several films look inward at cultural identity itself: postcolonial history in the Philippines, hypermasculine cultural structures in traditional Indonesian society, and queer love navigating the stillness of a pandemic.
Others push further out, weaving Sufi mysticism, quantum mechanics, and pluralistic worldviews into questions about the nature of reality, or finding quiet strangeness in urban solitude, shot on 16mm and scored with vaporwave and shoegaze.
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Upcoming screenings are on May 14, May 21, and May 28 at Klymax Discotheque.
All events are free with limited seating; RSVPs are recommended, though walk-ins are welcome subject to availability.
More information here.
Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.
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