CINEMA
Malaysian filmmaker to attend screenings
One of Malaysia's leading female filmmakers, Yasmin Ahmad, will present her body of work Friday through Sunday evenings at the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts. Ahmad will be at the screenings of "Gubra (Anxiety)" Saturday and "Mukhsin" Sunday, with question-and-answer sessions afterwards. Admission is free; the films are co-presented by the University of Hawaii's Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
» 7:30 p.m. Friday: "Rabun (Blurred Vision)" -- A retired couple leave the countryside to live in the city with their daughter, but complain about uncivil city folk. So it's no surprise that when the wife finds out she's inherited her late father's house in the country, the couple grabs the chance to fix it up. But things take a surprising turn when they discover that their relatives have been making some shady deals with the contractor whom they assigned to do the renovations.
» 4 p.m. Saturday: "Sepet" -- Ahmad's second film is a story of interracial teenage love between a Chinese peddler of pirated movies and a Malay schoolgirl named Orked. The title comes from the Malay word for "single eyelid" but pejoratively it means "slit eyes." Ahmad's gentle and engaging tale of doomed love assumes both political and personal dimensions.
» 7:30 p.m. Saturday: "Gubra (Anxiety)" -- Two stories of love and forgiveness parallel each other, the first the continuation of Orked's life (who's now married to a much older man) while the second tells of a muezzin and his efforts to assist two prostitutes in finding redemption for themselves and their families.
» 7:30 p.m. Sunday: "Mukhsin" -- Ahmad's latest film is about a blossoming romance between two children that gets complicated when a small misunderstanding results in them not speaking to each other and the boy has to move back to his village.