Decrees, Shorelines, Testimony: A Pedagogy of Southeast Asian Cinema

Abstract

This essay sketches a pedagogical method for teaching regional cinema that resists the containment of “Southeast Asia” as a ready-made frame. The course begins in Mindanao, southern Philippines, from where the region is read as a set of relations: paths traced through state speech, sea-border life, and place-based testimony. Each section addresses four prompts – process, discourse, scale, and route – to examine how film renders a region thinkable. From What Is Before parses decree and memory through screen duration and festival legibility. Thy Womb and The Mirror Never Lies , alongside emergent works such as Bohe and Unseen Soul, mark the littoral as an everyday negotiation of language, livelihood, and governance. Forbidden Memory , in conversation with Papuan and Palestinian activist media, proposes witnessing as a method, with resonance figuring in for resemblance. The essay argues that the classroom offers a discipline of attention that renders the region a site of inquiry.