EUFF and Tisch Asia: A cultural global exchange

German filmmaker Wim Wenders has often criticized the nationalistic tendencies of Europe and stressed European cinema as the medium to reflect the continent’s diverse identity.

Attempting to expand on this is the 2011 European Union Film Festival (EUFF).

Its collaboration with the Tisch School of the Arts Asia goes beyond just adding a superficial local touch. Functioning as an authentic cultural exchange, the festival extends itself as a platform for up-and-coming filmmakers.

Tisch Asia, besides having a robust film program that touches on the genre of European cinema, offers a multicultural perspective with a student body hailing from about 21 countries, including Australia, China, India, Japan, Ghana and Cuba.

Leveraging off its diverse student body, the EUFF has partnered with Tisch Asia, offering its students the rare opportunity to showcase their best short films alongside internationally acclaimed European features.

On the surface, local shorts and European features may seem worlds apart but as Attila Kali, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary -– one of the participating countries -- points out: “The films engage one another on a thematic level. It may not be obvious -- in fact, we try to avoid the obvious -- but there [are] common threads that link them.

“I think it reflects quite well the relationship between Europe and Singapore -- culturally different, but drawn together by many shared experiences.”

The Tisch line-up, authored by students of international origins, is globally diverse yet difficult to pigeonhole .

“We would lose a big part of our culture and identities if we compromised on one voice, one style and one type of movie,” says Uta Arning, a German student filmmaker at Tisch whose short “The Perfect Woman” will be featured with Luxembourgian independent “Dust.”

Arning's film, about a discontented German factory worker in search of love with the help of a robot, relays the significance of cross-culturalism. Ironically, due to a minimal production budget, Arning also had to source locations in Singapore that would resemble old industrial areas in Germany.

Jordan Schiele, a native Brooklynite from New York whose short “Ten Years From Now” also broaches the complex nuances of European cinema, says: “[It] is so broad that any contribution to [this] festival will deepen an eclecticism that is already present.”

His film, a chronicle of a Shanghainese woman romantically obsessed with a man confused by his sexuality, broadens that diversity by exploring sensitive themes -- the perception of homosexuality, the fear of persecution and failure, the desire and expectation to raise a family -- that have not been deeply considered in modern Chinese cinema.

“Not many people are inspired to embrace their identity in China, and I believe that [this] is a strength of European cinema,” says Schiele.

While Tisch Asia’s student films have featured in numerous film festivals -- at Seattle, Cannes, Pusan, Rotterdam, Tribeca, Sundance and Edinburgh -- EUFF is primarily a non-competitive platform for young filmmakers to showcase their work in a commercial theatre.

“It is a platform for excellence that highlights young filmmakers and introduces them to a cinema-going audience,” says Gillian Gordon, chair of the International Media Producing Program at Tisch Asia.

“Many of these students will be going on to make their first features soon, so this is an excellent opportunity for them to engage with the public.”

Essentially, the partnership between EUFF and Tisch Asia underscores not just the notion of European cinema, but also an evolution of something greater than just the sum of their parts, abolishing the old world principles of national cinema and democratizing the art of great storytelling.