Faces of JUE: Vicky Mohieddeen Talks Film

In our March issue, we talked to seven personalities of the JUE Festival to tell us more about each of the seven elements of JUE. Vicky Mohieddeen, who represents JUE Film, tells us why we should, just this once, trade our street-bought DVDs for the big screen.

I’d encourage people to attend the short-film anthologies. One is the Asian Cinema Week shorts, which we’re curating for young filmmakers from China to try and get the community excited. And 15 Malaysia is really interesting – short films shot guerillastyle, all completely different but quite rough around the edges.

We’re putting people who haven’t had their films shown in cinemas before on the same program as award-winning directors from across Asia. In a way, it works to elevate them, saying: “Raise your game. These are your peers.”

There’s the perception that the more serious a subject matter, then the more worthy of an artist you are. And I think that as an art form develops, you get more lightened shades. What you’re seeing in China is a very new independent cinema. The more chances that Chinese filmmakers have to see films that are being made in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, etc, the more chance they have to develop their own craft.

Bringing people together and giving them a chance to talk about and explore their work – that’s very JUE. People watch films on DVD and download stuff all the time here, but when you watch a film on the big screen and everyone around you is gasping or laughing, you see it the way it was intended to be seen.

Catch 15 Malaysia at Zajia Lab on Mar 16.