Every year, around this time, I usually get an extra reminder that Hari Raya is coming up. This year was someone’s Facebook posting of the opening pages to my short story “Home for Hari Raya” from Lovers and Strangers Revisited. The story was adapted into a film by Ohio University’s School of Media Arts & Studies.
Led by Associate
Professor Frederick Lewis, a team of students came to Malaysia for the filming and worked with Universiti Teknologi MARA
(UiTM), in Shah Alam.
Other than writing
the original story (and the story behind the story), I helped to edit their screenplay. I had hoped to meet the team at UiTM, but we had a scheduling conflict and I missed out…
But this year, I
was thinking about "Home for Hari Raya" for another reason due to
another filming project that I recently became involved with courtesy of
Somerset Maugham. The French translation
of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, which
became Trois autres Malaisie, had
attracted the attention of Laure Michel who contacted me from France about her
documentary Sensual Malaysia of Somerset Maugham for Arte, a Franco-German
cultural channel, which aired on 5 June 2017.
In my five-part series,
Maugham and Me, I blogged about the behind the scenes look at not one but three documentaries
that she and Richard Cloue had filmed while in Sarawak. I then blogged about
watching the films,
adding links to all three projects. (The
links will remain online until early August 2017, so if you come upon this
after that, the links may be gone.
So for
all Malaysians who celebrate Hari Raya, Selamat
Hari Raya! And for the rest, enjoy
the Open Houses and the holiday!
And if you have
an interest in Somerset Maugham and/or Sarawak, here are the links (with some great photos) to the five parts of Maugham and Me: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
—BorneoExpatWriter
Here's a link to the
intro and excerpts, and to four reviews of Trois Autres Malaisie in
eurasie.net, Malaisie.org,
easyvoyage.com,
and Petit
Futé mag.
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