AsianPersuasion
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Sweat, Blood and Tears
Once again, I have neglected my duty as blog person. Sorry to those who actually take the time to click on my website… : (
Well, looking at the last date I wrote an entry…it’s been a while, to say the least. So much has happened since little old March 3rd... I’ve made a independent documentary and submitted it to the Freedom Film Fest . A lot of sweat, blood, tears and ringgit went into the making of my little film…there were a few moments I really wanted to break down and cry during editing (to be expected really). I filmed with Yazid, it was basically just the two of us working on it…so were very proud of what we accomplished in two months.
Our doco is about sex education in Malaysia and how it is perceived by students, teachers and our society. We also examine why sex education is lagging in Malaysia and interestingly enough, this factor brings out many cultural beliefs held by our society. So, it’s a journey really. Our journey though a discovery of culture, cultural beliefs, and our society as a whole. There was SO MUCH more I wanted to include in our film, so many more angles to add…but we were working on a limited budget and time frame AND we had a time limit of only 30 minutes for the documentary…we could only put in the most important factors.
We’ve shown our doco to a local film maker and he wants us to go National with it…like tour around Malaysia with our video, organizing talks with local students about our topic…it was a little scary to hear that suggestion…I never really thought that our doco would be seen as a tool for open dialogue in Malaysia. Wow, what a compliment.
Our film has been short listed as one of the finalist films. The screenings for the Freedom Film Fest will be on May 14th and 15th. So if you want to catch my film or any other social issue documentaries, come on down to the HELP Institute on those days. The awards night will be on the 16th…so keep your fingers crossed for us!
