The festival featured 30 short films, with documentaries including award-winning films like the Susan Sarandon-produced Radical Grace; Among the Believers directed by Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Ali Naqvi; A Syrian Love Story directed by Sean McAllister; and A Very German Welcome directed by Carsten Rau and Hauke Wendler.
Among the featured films was a 40-minute documentary Bangkit Dari Bayangan (Rising From The Shadows) by local activist and documentary director Norhayati Kaprawi.
The documentary tells the story of Nyai Masriyah Amva, the widowed leader of a religious school in West Java, Indonesia who took over the school’s reins from her husband after he died.
Also featured was the Moving Voices series of shorts, produced by human rights NGO Pusat Komas in collaboration with radio station BFM and students from the Dasein Academy of Art.
The Moving Voices series is part of Pusat Komas’s new attempt to make Jinjang’s stories heard, after years of working with community residents association Permas and the Jinjang community.
The points shared throughout the festival include fresh views into the Syrian war, Germany’s open-arms refugee policy, Indonesia’s six-religion administration, Sarawak’s forest destruction and corruption, worldwide food security, the cost of fashion, and women sustaining their role in the religious clergy in the United States, as well as rare views into Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Kenya and even Estonia.
Also shown were the Big Stories Small Town series, directed by Nadira Ilana and Bindang Mantakag. The two films, entitled We Don’t Want to Forget How our Ancestors Gathered Food and Our Village Made a Sacred Oath, tell short stories from the Bongkud village in Ranau.
Earlier this year, the FFF 2016 panel of judges had selected two winners out of a shortlisted five films for this year’s winning film proposals, awarding them RM8,000 each to produce their film.
One of the winners, Ashleigh Lim, a filmmaker and animator from Muar, Johor, had her short film, Stories Of My Father, premiere at this year’s festival.
Her film tells the story of her father’s past, as he was detained without trial under the Internal Security Act from 1968 to 1974 for his involvement in the Labour Party which was subsequently outlawed because of its pro-communist leanings.
The film spoke of his life after detention, his continued friendship with other ex-detainees as well as life with his family.