The inaugural Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival didn’t receive rave reviews last year, but this time participants were rather impressed. HIZREEN KAMAL writes.

Ning Baizura performed a medley of songs.

IT was apparent that the four-day Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival (KLIFF) 2008, which ended last Saturday, achieved its target — participants were obviously impressed with the event.

Not only did it receive tremendous support from many film producers when it recorded more than 191 film submissions from 45 countries, compared with only 122 in the previous year, KLIFF is accredited as one of the 300 festivals recognised by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, which places it at par with festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival, among others.

The festival has also been included in its World’s Festivals calendar.

KLIFF 2008 is jointly organised by Malaysian National Film Development Corporation (FINAS) and Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival Sdn Bhd.
This year’s festival featured a symposium, a “business matching” component ( a first for the event), a film appreciation forum, film screenings and premieres, and the awards night.

With a fitting theme — “Celebrating Cultural Diversity” — the festival is not only aimed at helping filmmakers work together to make and market their films, but also at fostering closer ties between peoples of various countries through feature-length and short films, documentaries and animations.

And of course, like any international event, there is bound to be some hits and misses especially when it’s only into its second year!

A minor glitch which should be perceived as a major setback for the festival was the lack of publicity and promotions for it.

While KLIFF Sdn Bhd questioned some parties for being ignorant about the only international film festival that Malaysia hosts yearly, many perceived that the organisers were only interested in the participation of foreigners.

Never mind that some even confused the festival with another event, also called KLIFF, the Kuala Lumpur Islamic Finance Forum held a week before the festival at Istana Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

FINAS admitted to the lack of emphasis in advertising and promotions.

“Proper planning should have begun a year before, so that problems could be ironed out and everything already in place when the event is due to be held.

“Perhaps if publicity had been carried out in stages, KLIFF 2008 could have achieved much more,” said a local film director who attended all the KLIFF programmes.

Foreign delegates, who attended the festival in droves, were generally happy with the hospitality shown to them throughout the festival.

One commented that “KLIFF 2008 is far better than other major film festivals in the region,” while another described it as “a class above”.

They loved the multi-cultural performances of Welcoming Night at the Craft Complex, and the Awards Night at the Merdeka Hall of the Putra World Trade Centre.

They found it not only entertaining, but also informative with regards to Malaysia’s rich cultural diversity.

Business matching, which gave participants access to the Who’s Who of the global film industry, was a hit with local participants as well. Two working agreements were drawn up as a result.

The symposium, which highlighted Asia’s ancient art of shadow play or wayang kulit, was also popular.

These programmes promoted networking among participants, and introduced filmmakers to new areas in the industry.

Even though the festival had brought in 40 never-before-released films (apart from in their home countries) such as Jordan’s Captain Abu Raed, Indonesia’s Get Married and Egypt’s Hassan and Morcos to our shores, the free film screenings over the two days did not receive a good response, with many cinema halls only quarter- or half-full.

Perhaps screenings should have been stretched over a week or two, and their schedules well publicised.

It was also a little disheartening to see no entries from Asian countries with a reputation of churning out great and memorable films, such as Thailand and the Philippines. Even Singapore and Cambodia did not send in entries.

Perhaps the economy had affected the industry in most countries, resulting in fewer film productions globally.

But the fact that many of the films submitted to the festival did not fit in with the theme should be taken into account as well.

However, KLIFF made up for their absence by bringing in industry experts from these countries as moderators for the symposium.

Among them were Nick Deocampo, the director of Philippines’ Centre of New Cinema and the Asian Public Intellectual Fellow of the Nippon Foundation, and Philip Cheah, the founder and board director of the Singapore International Film Festival.

Again, this year did not see much participation from the various industry-related associations.

“Miscommunication” was cited as the reason for the lukewarm relationship between the organisers and the associations. It’s best that both parties bury the hatchet in order to work together in future.

After all, isn’t KLIFF an event of national interest that requires everyone’s participation and support?

As host Sarimah Ibrahim succinctly put it before wishing delegates goodbye at the end of Awards Night, “Let us all seek similarities and not differences.”