9 Shorts by Azharr Rudin

A S i n g u l a r T a l e n t

Don't miss this special program showcasing the singular talent of Azharr Rudin who was described by Singapore International Film Festival director Philip Cheah as a filmmaker to watch. Azharr's AMBER SEXALOGY had its world premiere at the just concluded SIFF.
Free Admission.
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Kelab Seni Filem Malaysia presents
9 Shorts by Azharr Rudin
Time & Date: 8.00pm, Saturday 6 May 2006
Free admission
Theatrette, HELP University College,
Pusat Bandar Damansara, Kuala Lumpur

The 9 short films in this program were shot between 2003 and 2005. Taman di dalam Sinkiku was partly prompted by a question from a member of the audience during a Q & A session at a local festival where Dancing Kites was ill programmed in early 2004.

Inspirations gathered from the small exposure in the scene and also places where Azharr's heart has been to, resulted the completion of a suite of short stories known as The Amber Sexalogy which had a sneak preview in December 2005 in Macau and world premiered at the recently concluded 19th Singapore International Film Festival.

This screening will be the Malaysian premiere for most of the works by Azharr who was named by The Star as one of the two local filmmakers to watch for in 2006 in a Faces to Watch sidebar in its Special Year Ahead pullout. The shorts have also travelled to Jakarta, Bangkok, Cork, Toronto, Tehran, Yogjakarta, Prague, Rotterdam, Los Angeles and perhaps will continue journeying to more places and hearts in the future.

Dancing Kites
(experimental/documentary / 11m / Malaysia-Indonesia / 2004)
22 year-old Azharr Rudin for the first time tags along with his mother to visit her hometown, Dumai, Indonesia upon hearing the sighting of a grandmother he never met. He opts to engage in the personal subject matter by letting his camera document places where his grandmother was believed to have been to, the physical state of the small town (and its inhabitants) - which has not changed much for the last 30 years according to his mother - and indirectly records the cycles of emotions throughout the journey.

Taman di dalam Sinkiku
(garden in my sink / narrative / 14m / Malaysia / 2004)
A supposedly accidental recording of life.

Colorfool
(music video / 4m / Malaysia / 2003)
An ambiguous visual rendition of Terry Callier's What Color is Love? as suggested by the song.

The Amber Sexalogy
(narrative / 61m / Malaysia / 2006) individual titles: Meeting, Loving, Raining, Forgetting Amber + Majidee + Desir
A suite of small but perfectly formed stories that serves as an eulogy to love as well as an exploration of public spaces and private moments. Arranged non-chronologically, the first five shorts record several stages in the love affair of young city dwellers Amber and Harris, from meeting to forgetting. Harris is played by several actors, all the better to perhaps reflect on his stages of growth as well as the lovely but obscure object of desire that is Amber. The stories pointedly alternate between Malay and English, but other forms of language - the physical, the natural, the hermeneutical - are at play too. The seemingly offhand imagery, the rhythmic editing and the sound design discreetly conspire to achieve a rare immediacy. The last short has no Amber but is a prologue of Harris's early encounter with urban mores, and by this time you know that his sentimental education will not end here.