Sabahan Nadira wins Best Short Film 17MFF Award
Published on: Friday, August 06, 2021
By: Ricardo Unto
.jpg "Sabahan Nadira wins Best Short Film 17MFF Award")
A screengrab of the ‘Were the Sun and the Moon to Meet’ film.
Kota Kinabalu: “Were the Sun and the Moon to Meet”, a short film produced, written and directed by Sabah-born filmmaker Nadira Ilana grabbed the Best Short Film (Open Category) Award at the recent 17th Mini Film Festival (17MFF).The film festival was hosted by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas)’s Cinematography Programme.
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Nadira said the film was shot in 2019, in Sabah and Kuala Lumpur (KL), and it took about a year to complete due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The short film is the prologue to my feature film ‘Wilderness’ which is currently in progress,” she told the Daily Express.
“I made ‘Were the Sun and the Moon to Meet’ as I have been based in KL for nearly a decade and had always struggled with the decision to permanently move back to Sabah but work opportunities in the film industry did not permit.
“The concept began with a flyer I had seen in KL many years ago advertising for labourers and maids from ‘Myanmar, Indonesia, Sabah and Sarawak’.
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“I also see similar flyers when I was back in Sabah, advertising jobs in West Malaysia and Singapore. Sabah is so rich in resources but somehow we are not investing in our youths enough to allow them to stay and find dignified work.”
In the film, she introduced characters from her feature film script – Emory who is thinking about moving to KL to work in a factory and Elly who tells him she is moving to KL to become a musician.
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In the end, she said, they realise that their dreams will not be aligned, even if they wish to be together.
“I think a lot of young people in Sabah have had to make this decision due to uneven development and the broken promises of Malaysia, hence the decision to use ‘Terang Bulan’ – an Indonesian folk song that resembles the Malaysian national anthem, in the film.
“The national identity is often viewed from the peninsula perspective in the mainstream and I always try to question that,” she said.
On the awards, Nadira was excited to have the Malaysian premiere of “Were the Sun and the Moon to Meet” at the Mini Film Festival which was based in Sarawak.
“When I first started making films several years ago, I found that peninsula audiences did not really understand my Sabah stories.
“They had little context for them outside of Malay-washed films or tourism ads.
“I had to really persist and even organised film screenings to raise awareness that Borneo-Malaysians have a voice, histories and perspectives of its own.
“Getting the award itself was exciting because I have a lot of respect for the jury panel and it was heartening to have the hard work of our team acknowledged.”
Festival director Yow Chong Lee said six short films out of 20 received awards in Malaysia’s longest running short film festival.
“This record high awards number is unprecedented in the festival’s history.
“In the past, juries commonly settled at four awards with Best Short Film and Special Jury Award for both Open and Students’ Category,” Yow said.
In the students’ category, both “Pulang” (directed by Yam Kin Wai, recently graduated from National Taiwan University of Arts) and “Bagan” (directed by Firdaus Balam, recently graduated from MMU) won the Best Short Film Award.
Three other films were given Special Jury Awards, namely “Burung-Burung” (by Anwar Johari Ho), “Ayahku, Dr G” (by Hidayah Hisham) and “Who the F**k Are You” (by Ng Kai Soong).
Lastly, two other films were given honourable mentioned to recognise their efforts in creatively presenting timely subjects matter – caretaker of Alzheimer patient during the pandemic (“Menanti Kau Pulang” by Izaq Yuzaini) as well as a film inspired from the folklore of “Sape” (“Echo” by Jeremy Jecky).
Bridging both the filmmakers and their audiences by screening 47 short films and three webinars, the event brought both filmmakers and audiences virtually together with record high audiences registration and viewing throughout the festival week.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
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