Gayle Lake claimed that the event featured the strongest collection of Asian films in Sydney in recent years. But with no feature films from Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore or Sri Lanka, her assertion was simply baseless. Previous festivals have screened films from a broad range of Asian countries, including in 1998 a special selection of Vietnamese films. There were no features from Africa, Russia or Italy. Festivals provide the only avenue for many filmmakers, particularly those attempting to make films independent of the giant production and distribution corporations, to screen their films.
Every director welcomes the opportunity for discerning audiences to discuss and debate their work.
This is crucially important for filmmakers from the under-developed nations and for those whose movies are banned in their own countries. So Close to Paradise have never been publicly screened in Sydney. And while travel to Australia from Asia is a relatively simple and inexpensive affair, no Asian directors attended this year's festival. The Filmspeak Forums held at the festival mainly centred on the economics of filmmaking and included discussion on copyright, marketing and other business issues. But perhaps the most alarming sign of the festival's orientation was that a Filmspeak Forum was devoted to an address by Des Clark, Australia's new chief censor.