Press Lounge

Pesaro is a beautiful Mediteranean town. " Flower in The Pocket" has an open air screening at the Piazza. Since the sun will set only at about 9:30pm in the summer, the screening start about 9:45pm.

Amir and Tuck Cheong arrived earlier than me. They rented a bicycle. They even went for an "Olive Oil Testing" event.

When we introduced "Flower in The Pocket" together, Amir told the audience that it is a film for children of all ages, and also for pedophiles! Tuck Cheong, as an actor of "Flower in The Pocket", asked all the diehard fans of Alfa Romeo to come forward to meet him.

Today, Amir and Tuck Cheong is going to food shopping. They are going to buy the regional olive oil, pasta and cheese to decorate their kitchen.

Susuk will have its World Premiere tonight! We are all looking forward for it. Read what Amir wrote here.

Wong Tuck Cheong's Greetings from Pesaro, Italy.

We're nearing the end of the filmfest, 2 more days to go.
Susuk, the last title in the Malaysian special focus, will have its world premiere tonight at 11pm.
Amir Muhammad is taking it all in his stride, head very much on his shoulders despite all the pubicity accorded him - he's been interviewed by Italian VOGUE, and had a live interview on French radio, besides much else.

This morning there's a round table discussion on Malaysian cinema, in the courtyard of the building housing the festival secretariat - a nice cosy place where you could relax and have a coffee, a beer or a martini bianco. Italian towns and cities are full of nice cosy corners, courtyards, and of course squares...piazzas to you and me.

Two nights ago, Flower in the Pocket, in competition here, was screened in the city square, and the whole Malaysian gang was presented to the audience by festival director Giovanni Spagnoletti.
The Pesaro filmfest is 40 years old this year.

It's got its fair share of cinema history - fest director Giovanni Spagnoletti was responsible for introducing Fassbinder to Italian audiences, Fernando Solanas's The Hour of the Furnace premiered here 40 years ago and - you guessed it - the whole film (260 mins, divided into 3 parts) was screened here, and Solanas is present as a special guest, and audiences were in thrall to his presence at a talk yesterday - still energetic and occasionally fiery in his anti-fascist or anti-neo-fascist pronouncements. Awesome. Of course I got his autograph!

More anon...gotta go to the Malaysian round table...

MALAYSIAN ROUND TABLE
...the round table on Malaysian cinema just finished...it was quite relaxing for us - Amir did most of the talking!

...so Solanas the legend was very articulate yesterday, and I'm trying my luck for a dvd of Hour of the Furnace to show back home, and also a copy of the video recording of the talk (all in Italian, but I sat right through it anyway, don't care, as I did all 3 parts of Hour with only Italian subs - so powerful are its images still after all these years!).

If I get a recording of the talk, I'll get it translated into English, for the edification of a new generation of docu junkies.

Legend has it that at the end of the film's premiere, the audience rose as one and cheered, and Solanas was carried on the shoulders of his fans.

Pesaro about 4 hrs by train east of Rome is the home of motor champ Francesco Rossi and composer Giaochino Rossini - he wrote the Thieving Magpie (La Gazaa Ladra), the chorus of which was used as the signature tune for the film/comic/TV series The Lone Rranger (remember him? he rode a horse called Silver cos he only used silver bullets for his gun, he's the masked sidekick of Tonto, and he used to yell "Hi ho, Silver, away!" at the successful conclusion of every mission).

Talking of thieving - it's eerie cos when Amir, Davide and I rented bicycles for getting around town, i joked about us being bicycle thieves (ala Vittorio de Sica's neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves - Ladri di Biciclette - after all, we are in Italy, right?) - and two days later Amir's bike was ladro - stolen!
Beats us who would nick a bike that's not in very good nick - after all, this is a far cry from Italy of the postwar, when the humble bicycle was a prized commodity and a vehicle on which de Sica's bill-poster protagonist depended for his livelihood.

Perhaps anything goes for a diversion in Pesaro - the place is hot and humid! people can go loco here!