 My name is Davie Chou. I'm a French Cambodian film director and film producer based here in Plampin and it's my pleasure to discuss today in presence of Miguel Cerucco, who is a Filipino writer, novelist, journalist and currently professor at the New York University Abu Dhabi. Okay, so the topic that we're going to try to debate and hopefully discuss with you deals with culture and identity especially how art can help us contemplate contemplating our past, present and future with maybe the challenge for ASEAN artists of how can they take ownership of their culture and identity? But first I would like to share with you some personal story of mine that can maybe illustrate the topic of today. Both parents were born in Cambodia here and they moved to France in 1973 to study with the idea of going back to Cambodia to live but in 1975 as you may know the Khmer Rouge took power in the country and there was tech to stay in France. So that's how I was born and grew up in France in total ignorance of the language, the culture and the history of the country of my parents. But somehow it's art who bring me back to Cambodia, if I may say. I started around 20 to develop a passion for cinema starting to make film and choosing that I wanted to become a filmmaker in my career and then I remembered a past story, a family story that my grandfather who I never met because he died before the Khmer Rouge used to be a big film producer in Cambodia. That's the reason why I set up in Cambodia in 2009 and 10 for the first time of my life making some research which ended up on my first documentary named Golden Slumbers about the lost golden age of Cambodian cinema from the 60s and 70s and since 2009 I've been living back and forth between Paris and Pompeii opening also a production company here developing films by emerging Cambodian directors and last year I released my last film which this time was a fiction film named Diamond Islands which this time tried to reflect and illustrate the struggle between youth today in modern Cambodia and the modernization and the youth changes that Cambodia is living through. Now going back to the question so that's few images of my first film Golden Slumbers and my last film Diamond Island about youth today in quotient sites and future of Cambodia. Going back to the question of how art can reflect our identity I think making these two films really made me realize how art is a fantastic tool to explore the past and the present. Every country in South East Asia have some very complex history dealing somehow with colonization, colonization, dictatorship and sometimes genocide and of course art is a fantastic tool to explore that history to trying to explore and define and portray the different layers of complexity of the history and to try to enlighten for the new generation this story and how to give them some knowledge about their own culture and identity but also art I think is a fantastic tool to explore our present time. I'm giving an example a story I used to hear about that architect who is building this new building And he's going to see this the facade of his building in the making every day on the same angle But after after many days is just start to lose the connection with what he's doing because he's not understanding it anymore And then he have this clever move or just stepping a little few meters away Taking another angle to another perspective a little further to his building and suddenly he reconnects with his building as if he Could see it again for the first time and understanding what he's doing. I've strongly believed that art is exactly about that Giving a representation of our reality from a different perspective the perspective of the artist that suddenly he gonna give us Some glance of our reality that we forget to see because we too surrounded by it and so if I just switch in perspective We can really understand better what we are doing where we're living in and what we are surrounded by So that's that's that's the thing. I think how the mission of the artist is really to try to tackles The society we're living in try to portray the population the youth the changes that we're living in So that's how I could say art can help us Reflecting our identity, but on the question of how art can help us building our identity. That's another question I think it's yeah, I can ask this for myself in comedy and cinema. What is comedy and cinema exactly? Especially in that context that comedy and female industry is just rebuilding itself now with new emerging directors making films But what would be called comedy and cinema? It's it's it's a complex question and it's more than just filming a territory for me if I think of French new way from the 60s, I have a precise idea what it is if I think of Italian Neorealism from the 50s I know exactly what it is if I think of a thing of Independent Filipino film today I can see those films tackles tackling social issues in a very realistic approach So I see what it is So what could be the emergence of a comedy and cinema actually? I don't have an answer to that question and looking forward to hearing your thoughts about it But maybe opening the question is already allowing yourself to finding an answer because if we don't ask the question The tendencies of course to re-copy the mainstream industry Which of course today is the American blockbuster that everybody love and everybody want to reproduce But to opening yourself and what can I build for my own country of a nationalist? Which is not nationalistic, but nationalist cinema and art can open ourselves to maybe explore Singular voices explore our own freedom to really understand who we are and what we can do And the future will speak for it. Thank you very much My name is Miguel C. Hooko. I'm a writer from the Philippines And my job is I'm a storyteller. I Write things down. I write words down on little slips of paper So I hope you'll allow me today to tell you a story It is one of identity and culture Which is our topic obviously But it is also a story of process and purpose Both of which obsess the artist and Anyone really who creates anything such as all of you here today My story begins growing up in Vancouver in a Filipino household Our identity was of course Filipino Even if we had moved to Canada for a safer life One evening in 1986. I found my parents transfixed to the television on the screen Filipinos of all kinds had flooded The streets of our capital Manila demanding democracy The plundering Marcos's had fled after 14 years of brutal dictatorship. I Remember I remember my mother saying two things. I just cannot believe it. She kept saying and We can go home now. She said At least that's how I remember it. I Was only nine years old, but I do remember thinking aren't we already home? We soon moved back to the land of my birth, which was both foreign and familiar One day in 1989. I came home from school to find my parents transfixed again to the television on the screen Chinese students had flooded the streets of their capital Beijing demanding democracy But unlike in the Philippines. They were massacred by authorities as Coverage continued One image That emerged over the next few hours and days Stuck with me over the course of my lifetime It is of a man in a white shirt and dark trousers carrying a plastic bag He's standing in front of four tanks in this photo. I realized that there are two heroes The citizen who refused to move even when faced with a machine of violence and the fellow countryman Inside the machine of violence Who refused to harm someone whose only violation was to stand in dissent in a public space? Since that day in 1989 a lot has changed for me. I am now a writer a journalist a professor. I Write novels. I report on society's broken systems and how they came to be Used by the powerful against the disempowered. I Teach people how to find their voices so that they too can raise them and be heard But what has never changed is my search for home and for an identity that has meaning I'm constantly questioning the value of my work all too aware of its limitations Maybe because I'm an artist in a diasporic world or maybe it's just because I'm simply a citizen in an interconnected world But we can all agree in that world Things need to urgently be changed You do remember how your elders would ask you what do you want to be when you grow up? You remember that right? Your goal was was perhaps to be a businessman or a doctor or a lawyer But what if you were asked instead? Not what do you want to be when you grow up? But what are the problems that you want to fix? Perhaps your goals would have been different Directly learning the skills that you needed to apply yourselves to fixing those problems that concerned you such as inequality Intolerance climate change or all that long list of things. We all agree need fixing Not being doing Words matter. I tell my students to stop asking how to write. I tell them quit that How how do I write? How do I write stories? How do I how do I become a great published author? Practice will teach them that I Tell them instead that they should ask why they write Because that will sustain them through all the inevitable hardships that they will face And that's why I'm here today at the World Economic Forum because I have the radical idea that words matter They define our culture, but they also define our purpose both as individuals and as a society If words are that essential then Shouldn't they be wielded by everyone freely? Shouldn't they be available so that nobody is underprivileged in being heard abusive leaders will first work To discredit then hinder then censor dissent and any inconvenient voices We've seen it all throughout history Claiming that it's for the good of the country But we have to remind them a voice is a vote by speaking out. We are actually Standing in front of tanks I'm here today as a storyteller I believe in the value of stories because they define who we are from scripture to cinema They contain the wisdom and truths of our society Stories even prove that good does outweigh evil because even the most brutal desperate will tell himself the narrative of his own Goodness and the nobility of his own intentions How does a mass murderer sleep at night by telling himself the story that he is saving the world from those who deserve to die? We as a society however must guard against those narratives that seek to justify Those who wield power over the powerless Not only must we write our history properly and document the present honestly We must shape the future by refusing to allow the powerful to redefine. What is right and wrong? Yes, to have a voice is to have a vote Discourse allows us to discuss those problems that we want to fix and how together we can fix them Identity isn't us being who we are Identity Must be us doing what needs to be done To create a better society For all not just for the few This image of a man in front of these tanks has been censored in its own country Of course look at it. How eloquently it speaks it tells us of defiance of Courage of heroism dressed in the everyday clothes of a man in a white shirt Carrying his shopping, but if we step back and look at it more broadly we see that the little splash makes ripples and those ripples then become waves and Those waves can actually reach farther than we might ever imagine possible But really we are too young men Well, he's younger than I am in search for Identity within our cultures Searching for meaning searching for purpose, which is not just something that artists do, but I think I Know that it's something that humans do whether we're in business or the arts whether we're in politics Or any other profession. So please let's let's have that conversation now I've seen Diamond Island and it's a kind of very Obviously detailed look at what these kind of young Cambodian men is sort of their emotions and what they're going through And obviously on the subject of identity Given that you grew up in France that was obviously very different from your reality So how did you kind of go about connecting with your Cambodian roots in that more kind of deep level, which was very different to your own experiences It's true that somehow we shared that in common that to be a little outsider Observer of a reality that bring us to try to explore even though I was not born in Cambodia So my relationship to Cambodia is very different than Me get rich and we Philippines for sure for the Philippines for sure I had to assume also this outside a point of view of mine Not thinking that I was myself just a company and director Filming Cambodia, but assuming what was my own history and to integrate I think in the film the point of view of observing things from a different perspective and again as I was saying in the talk I believe that that different perspective helped me also to try to catch things that maybe when I was showing the Film to common people sometimes they really react very strongly saying that oh it's exactly us this little gesture But but I didn't even notice that we're doing that But we exactly doing that and that's what I'm talking about sometime having a little different step forward or step backward can help us to See things and to notice thing that when we're too close to reality We just don't see so that was my point assuming my kind of outsider point of view and not lying to myself To have an insider point of view and from this outsider point of view try to really work Of course and observe and and investigate to try to give a presentation that I think accurate of reality I don't know if you want to jump on that how do you match and how do you deal with that being out of the Philippines or writing about the Philippines? As an artist you're always the outsider. That's Both the curse and in a way a blessing that that allows us to have a perspective That that angst that that that feeling that we have to overcompensate for our outsider status means that we are also very intent on being responsible in In being active in in portraying things fairly at least in my purpose in my art. That's that's what I try to do There's always this question of authenticity. How can you be an authentic Filipino artist if you? Only if you were born in the Philippines, but but you grew up abroad until you were you know ten or eleven years old You know the world is diasporic That the Filipino experience is now global. We were once colonized and now we're colonizing the world Raising Generations of everybody's children in every culture building their buildings And taking back those ideas like like the old Filipinos the illustrados who helped create the Philippine Revolution once did And you know we're nine million Filipinos living abroad. That's that's the population of many countries so this idea of insider outsider is very much really just a question of Bridging that gap and being very intent with it to be an authentic writer means Writing about your authentic experience and that's what I do I don't go writing about The the things that I know nothing about I actually write about the elite privileged diasporic Filipinos which are very often By many writers who do not come from that class Very often portrayed to dimensionally and I believe that even if I am writing from a point of privilege by exposing it honestly by discussing it by talking about the failings of the privileged class and the systems that they have not just been party to but but Perpetuated I think there is value in that and I think my outsider status Really does make me more aware and more engaged very much ironically so I Founded an NGO recently with a friend and basically our project is called our Mongolian dream and We basically want to define the Mongolian dream through a grassroots campaign to listen to everybody And the biggest challenge I'm finding is that even if you want to give people a voice They don't know what their voice is and so how do we kind of draw out these voices and then Build that up into one kind of direction and values. It's a very complex question, but I'll offer a very simple answer How do we empower those voices? I? Believe we empower those voices by ensuring that the powers that be are Not able to quash those voices Freedom of speech is constantly under attack in many different countries around the world This idea of freedom of speech must be responsible speech Is an alluring one but who gets to dictate what is responsible? It's the powerful so I think we begin by ensuring that those voices are never silenced and then we start off From there to starting to empower those voices through so many different other programs skills Education and just even just the respect for their words for their respect for the respect for their right to speak out Thank you, I think I understand really your point because I I faced with the same struggle here in Cambodia But it's a very general one. I'm sure it's more about I think the weakness of not having The good tools to to to fight in that very strong struggle in which we're so surrounded by Images and and how all these propagandist Thing just feed us and make us being lazy of not trying to re-question and not even having the courage to re-question And I think I think it's just a very long process and a long way to go and and and that's basically the commitment And we're putting into it even though sometimes we can be discouraged which sometimes I can feel as well personally But I think we just need to go on that way believing in that of the changes that that will have as an impact Maybe for just few people, but it's few people Maybe in the future will be the people that will make a bigger change So I think it's really about this very personal commitment of just going that way because you know how and to maybe try To give to the people the tools To to take to deconstruct the the older speeches that surround them at some time We don't even aware to be manipulated by all its surrounding us So we just repeating the mainstream without having the consciousness of just being repeating them So giving us always so building the brain of course and having this education I'm always telling to young filmmakers that To learn how to use a camera the technical aspect of it which obsesses everybody I think we can and no offense to cinematographers, but we can learn how to use a camera after two or three weeks But to learn how to use the language of cinema to build your own language of cinema that takes a whole life For everything maker in the world and that's what we should focus on But I think it's it's about commitment and not giving up that we can actually make an actual change