The Black Hand Gang
Che Mamat Parang Tumpol
Lakshmana Krishnan
Singapore – 1960

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..Cast: Wahid Satay (Che Mamat), M. Amin, Latifah Omar (Fatimah), Dollah Sarawak
Screenplay: Pelham Groom
Cinematography: Nan Kai Juan
Production: Cathay-Keris Films
Language: Malay, Hokkien
Duration: 95 min
Color: Black and White
Rights / Thanks to Che Mamat Parang Tumpol, now preserved by the Asian Film Archive, is one of the 91 surviving Cathay-Keris Malay Classics film titles made in Singapore between the 1950s and early 1970s. In 2014, the collection was inscribed onto the UNESCO Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Register, a list of endangered library and archive holdings. Thanks to the Asian Film Archive for providing access to their Cathay-Keris Malay Classics Collection, and to Cathay-Keris Films for their support of the screening.

Synopsis: Che Mamat is a clumsy but charming daydreamer from the coast. While his nagging mother finds him hopeless, his girlfriend Fatimah encourages him to enter a story-writing competition organized by the newspaper Berita Singapura. As chance would have it, Mamat wins the top prize and lands a job as an investigative journalist. His first assignment is to track down the infamous Black Hand Gang, a criminal organization suspected of exhorting shop-owners into buying their beer and leaving their gang sign—a black handprint—wherever they go as a warning. When the police also join in Mamat’s investigation, handprints suddenly begin appearing all over the place. Wild pursuits and hilarity ensue as a singing Mamat rides his lambretta in pursuit of the triads.

Wild Strawberries
Smultronstället
Ingmar Bergman
Sweden – 1957Cast: Victor Sjöström (Dr. Isak Borg), Bibi Andersson (Sara), Ingrid Thulin (Marianne Borg), Gunnar Björnstrand (Dr. Evald Borg)
Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman
Cinematography: Gunnar Fischer
Production: Svensk Filmindustri
Language: Swedish, Latin
Duration: 91 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: Dr. Isak Borg, now 78 years old, is traveling by car to Lund to receive an honorary degree. He’s traveling with his daughter-in-law Marianne, married to his son Evald. Isak now lives a lonely life which, by his own admission, is partly his own fault, having consciously withdrawn from most social interaction. Along the way they stop at the family’s summer home where he spent time during the first twenty years of his life. It’s the place where the wild strawberries grow and reminds him of his beautiful cousin, Sara, to whom he was secretly engaged until she eloped with his irresponsible brother Sigfrid. They give rides to several people along the way, including a girl—also named Sara—and her two friends, followed by a married couple whose bickering almost runs them off the road. Borg’s reminiscences and disturbing dreams add to his melancholy as he questions the decisions he has made in his life.

The Burmese Harp
Biruma no tategoto
Kon Ichikawa
Japan – 1956 Cast: Rentarô Mikuni (Captain Inouye), Shôji Yasui (Mizushima), Jun Hamamura (Ito), Taketoshi Naitô (Kobayashi), Shunji Kasuga (Maki)
Screenplay: Natto Wada
Cinematography: Minoru Yokoyama
Production: Nikkatsu
Language: Japanese, English
Duration: 133 min
Color: Black and White

Synopsis: In July, 1943, the Japanese army is on the retreat. Posted in Burma, Mizushima tries to keep up the spirits of his fellow soldiers with the sounds of his harp. The British ask him to go into the mountains and talk a Japanese platoon into surrender. With only 30 minutes to do it, Mizushima us unable to convince his fellow countrymen to avoid needless bloodshed for the sake of indifferent political powers, and is devastated when they choose to fight and die with honour. Deeply affected by a senseless war, he becomes a Buddhist monk and travels the countryside, burying the remains of those Japanese who never made it home alive. While his friends await repatriation, temporarily interned at the Mudon POW camp, Mizushima vows to remain in Burma, dedicating his life to prayer and the way of Lord Buddha.