15MALAYSIA
Fifteen short films with socio-economic subject matter by 15 directors of Malaysia's "New Wave" and "No Wave." 15Malaysia is a short film project. It consists of 15 short films made by 15 Malaysian filmmakers. These films not only deal with socio-political issues in Malaysia, they also feature some of the best-known faces in the country, including actors, musicians and top political leaders. You may think of them as funky little films made by 15 Malaysian voices for the people of Malaysia.
Yasmin Ahmad
Linus Chung
James Lee
Woo Ming Jin
Yuhang Ho
Amir Muhammad
Tan Chui Mui
Namron
Khairil M. Bahar
Johan John
Desmond Ng
Kamal Sabran
Liew Seng Tat
Mussadique
Suleiman
Casts & Crew
Tian Chua
Kahoe Hon
Khairy Jamaluddin
Sarah Lian
Nik Aziz Nik Mat
Raymond Phathanavirangoon
Also Directed by Yasmin Ahmad
Two Malaysian sisters, Rohani and Rohana, run away from home to escape their wealthy father’s mistreatment. They find refuge in a small town where they get to know Brian Goh, a young Catholic schoolteacher. Brian is irresistibly attracted to the two girls. Impressed by their extraordinary courage in the face of adversity, their relationship forces him to confront the ghosts of his own childhood. Director Yasmin Ahmad explores the possibilities of emotional survival after being traumatised by loved ones. Through the wanderings of three lost souls who band together and console one another, Muallaf celebrates friendship, forgiveness, and the coming to terms with the past.
A twelve-year-old Malaysian boy's friendship with a sharp-tongued, assertive little girl moves awkwardly and wistfully into first love in this gently comic prequel to Yasmin Ahmad's "Sepet" and "Gubra."
19-year old Ah Loong is in charge of a street stall selling pirated VCDs. Ah Loong is an incurable romantic with a unique hobby – he loves to read and write poetry. Quite content to carry on being the Romeo of the slums, Ah Loong's life takes on a sudden change one day when a 16-year old Malay schoolgirl arrives at his stall in search of Wong Kar-Wai films.
It tells a story about a free-spirited older couple, Pak Atan and Mak Inom who decide to spend more time in the country after getting tired of city life. But they find that life in the old village isn't a good thing when they get cheated by a distant relative, Yem, out of some money. They cut him off and Yem plots revenge. Meanwhile, in the city, the couple's daughter Orked is being wooed by a young gentleman,
A talent search competition has matched two hearts - that of Melur, a Malay-mixed girl and an Indian male student, Mahesh. Melur, with her melodious voice, singing whilst playing the piano is one of the seven finalists of the Talentime competition of her school organised by Cikgu Adibah. Likewise Hafiz, enthralling with his vocalist talent while playing the guitar, divides his time between school and mother, who is hospitalised for brain tumor.
Seven years after Jason, Orked is now married to a much older guy, Arif. Everything seems ideal in their marriage at first glance. One fateful morning, Orked is awakened by a distressing phone call from Mak Inom with news that Pak Atan has become catatonic due to diabetic complications.After some chaos, they take Pak Atan to the hospital. There, Orked bumps into Alan, Jason’s elder brother. His father, Pa has also been hospitalized. As the film develops, we witness the friendship between Alan and Orked flourish, to Arif’s apprehension. Perhaps because for Orked, Alan is a link to her first love.
Also Directed by James Lee
If It’s Not Now, Then When? mostly takes place in an apartment inhabited by three members of a family (though never at the same time): mother Pearlly Chua (from Tsai Ming-liang’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone), daughter Tan Bee Hung and young son Kenny Gan. Their father seems recently to have died. The mother leaves early and returns late, out on long walks in the park with a lover whom the daughter and her best friend try to spy on. The daughter pecks away at a computer at work and has a desultory affair with her married boss, which he carries on between his business and family phone calls. And the son breaks into cars and “recycles” the electronics he finds.
Berg has just come to Kuala Lumpur and agrees to share a room with Andrew. He meets the other occupants of the house, including the ghost of a murdered girl and a struggling screenwriter whose wife works as a hooker. He also finds out about the mysterious disappearance of an artist who had been a previous tenant. Berg himself is plagued by inertia and the memory of a lost love, and needs to reconcile this with his new life in the city.
Between a man and his lover lies a wall, between the man and the country he loves lies another wall. Can a one-sided dialouge breaks the walls and expresses the man’s feelings and sentiments? Or does the lover or the country wants the wall to be broken in the first place? This short was inspired by Amy Len’s dance choreography “Wall” and colloborated with Loh Bok Lai. The dance was originally choreographed for a performance in Japan Dance Wave Fukuoka ‘06 - Asian Contemporary Dance Now and later made into an experimental video combining elements of an actor and monologue. The video footages were also used for the dance piece itself in KL.
A photographer, Azman, is in love with Lina, whose husband Meor has just been released from prison.
JRaymond an office drone who had no luck with women finally met Cindy in an online dating website, unknown to him Cindy is a cannibal. Will he becomes her true love and convert her into a vegetarian?
A dark take on media manipulation and political situation in Malaysia. The idea is to convey how normal citizens even though sometimes they know what they read and heard are absurd and not right but still with not much options to react but to accept them in order to maintain their livelihood. And at the same time powerful figures whom understands the mentality of the citizens continues to drives their ridiculous and absurd ideas and opinions to the mass.
7 years ago, small-time gangster Meor went missing. His wife Nina eventually re-married, to his best friend, Din. Din is a loving husband and doting father to their daughter, Mina, 5, and Rosli, 10, Nina's son with Meor. Despite this, he is having an affair with Liza, his feisty young secretary. To cover his tracks, Din pretends to drive graveyard shifts for his taxi driver friend, Azman. Din's cozy world goes Topsy-turvy when Meor suddenly reappears, with knock-on effects for the others. They each have to struggle with the question of relationships and loyalties, amidst a backdrop of urban decay and powerlessness. Are they prepared to give up what's comfortable for new possibilities? Where has Meor been all this time? And why is there a gun in his bag?
Teoh is dumped by his live-in girlfriend who takes all her possessions, including the washing machine. He buys a second-hand machine, which is when things go wrong.
Three former high school best friends gather for a steamboat dinner just to catch up. As the dinner went on into the night with beers and wine thrown in things get complicated as one of them has a hidden secret that no one wants to know in their present situation.
A woman hires a pair of spiritual medium to help her to communicate with her recently deceased husband who was killed in an auto accident.
Also Directed by Woo Ming Jin
Seru’ follows a production team in the midst of shooting when many strange things start to take place, affecting the crewmembers until eventually someone is murdered. When assistant director (Sari) gets hysterical and makeup artiste Julia collapses, things start to get haywire. Not long after, Julia disappears into the forest and the rest head out to find her. As the crewmembers get taken out one at a time by a vengeful entity, the reason behind the whole event is uncovered.
"Catching The Sea" is a 2005 short film by Woo Ming Jin about the lives of several people in a village after a mysterious disease strikes and kills their loved ones. Set in a dilapidating fishing island, the film is about reconciling death and moving on with life. A prequel/spin-off for Woo Ming Jin's subsequent feature "The Elephant and The Sea."
Father and son wrestle with love in a small Malaysian fishing village. While father looks up an old lover he should have married years ago, his son faces a dilemma. Will he choose the girl he’s in love with, or the daughter of his boss?
Two men -- one elderly, one in his twenties -- are touched by tragedies linked to a single source in this drama from Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
A short burlesque. A playful film that doesn't only play with colour and vertigo. Albert is a security man and that isn't always an exciting job. Sometimes he enjoys the view from the roof of the building. A blue roof. One day a burglar manages to escape his attention and he gets the sack. The blue roof calls.
Local filmmaker Woo Ming Jin and his crew traversed across Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore to find 'Seruan Merdeka' (1947) - the first film made in Malaya post-WWII, and also the first film in the history of Malaysian cinema to feature a biracial cast of Malays and Chinese. While tracking the film's whereabouts, Woo met many locals along the way, whom he interviewed in an effort to find out more about the country's history.
Follows the everyday life of Ali, a 15-year-old boy who has to come to terms with growing up with a single father and a nosey neighbour, seemingly eyeing for his affection. With the arrival of a new teacher, Miss Liew, Ali finds himself developing a crush on her. At the same time, he and his best friend, Hassan experience the awkward stage of being a teenager, spending their day fishing and getting bullied, and learning to deal with that.
On his 21st birthday, MJ (Shaheizy Sam) was given his father’s trust to inherit their family’s Mamak restaurant empire. That means, MJ has to choose between his family business or following his own dream in opening a cupcake bakery.
A fisherman, a young mother, and a hallucination.
Also Directed by Yuhang Ho
A 23-year-old man looking to escape the burden of his alcoholic mother strikes up an illicit online relationship with a 15-year-old schoolgirl.
Bendera, an Indonesian nationalist group, is angry with Malaysia. Its leader has asked for his country to declare war on Malaysia. Having affection for Indonesia, our Malaysian filmmaker does not understand why some of its people hate him and his country. So he asks them why.
"Mrs K" is a story of a woman who gives everything that she has to protect her husband and daughter when enemies from her past come hunting her.
Five award-winning ASEAN film directors celebrate Southeast Asian art through this collection of short films. As an omnibus of short films, is inspired by the art collection found at the National Gallery Singapore, Each of the five directors – Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Eric Khoo, Ho Yuhang and Joko Anwar – handpicked a masterpiece from the 19th and 20th century as inspiration for their short films.
A rites-of-passage film from Malaysia, Ho Yuhang's film takes a lyrical approach to a young man's recognition of the violence and harshness of life.
Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Seoul. Three couples in three cities in three countries: The paths of a telemarketer for a loan company and a cart rink owner are destined to cross. A pub owner and a woman with their own background stories. A virgin forklift operator who has never kissed before and a kiss-for-sale manager.
A Member of Parliament (MP) of a fishing town turns to a mysterious woman who possesses shamanistic powers in order to salvage his town's dire economic situation. She fixes all his problems and the two soon become lovers. However, the woman has a dark secret that threatens to destroy his life.
An omnibus of 4 contemporary ghost stories.
A young teacher named Yasmin ("Min") goes off in search of her birth mother.
Also Directed by Amir Muhammad
On the night of 18 October 1987, a soldier ran amok with an M16 in the area of Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur. Due to the thorny circumstances of the time and place, his amok triggered a citywide panic and rumours of racial riots. Why did he do it? Why were Malaysians so jittery at the time? And what happened next? "The Big Durian" speaks to 23 Malaysians (some real, some fictional) to find out.
Susuk is a 2008 Malaysian horror film which was released on August 7, 2008 in Malaysia. The film is directed by Amir Muhammad and Naeim Ghalili. The story concerns about Soraya, who uses the forbidden practice of susuk in order to be famous.
Short about a prison.
In a mosque, shoes are stolen.
Politicains watch a film by Amir Muhammad.
Lips to Lips is an urban comedy featuring four intertwined stories about desire, all set during one day in Kuala Lumpur. A suicidal young man mourns the death of his stepmother who had come into fatal contact with an apple. A bubbly radio DJ catches her fiancé in an unexpected sexual encounter on the eve of their wedding night. A dapper restaurant owner falls for his doppelganger. A bookshop clerk resorts to black magic to get the attention of a girl with a fetish for cookbooks. Lips to Lips is Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad’s directorial debut. It is Malaysia’s first independent digital feature film that marked the beginning of the Malaysian independent film movement. It paved the way for the Malaysian New Wave’s unique brand of DV (digital video) cinema, whose leading figures have developed a niche of dedicated film audiences.
Gay love story.
A portrait of village life in South Thailand, home of retired Malay-Muslim members of the communist party of neighboring Malaysia. Recollections of the decades-long guerrilla war are interspersed with a Thai radio soap opera.
A travel documentary essay, interspersed with specially composed songs, about the early life and legacy of Chin Peng, exiled leader of the banned Communist Party of Malaya.
Short film about a difficult journey.
Also Directed by Tan Chui Mui
Chui Mui Tan's part in the anthology film Fragment. A sort of sequel to A Tree in Tanjung Malim.
We often fall in love first, and then look for reasons, to justify why we love someone. To ask "why you love me?", is as silly as to ask "why you don't love me?". There is no reason, and there is no logic.
In this omnibus film, six directors from the region each reflect on the Chinese diaspora. Thai filmmaker Aditya Assarat describes a meeting in Thailand between Paula and her friends, who have Chinese roots, with her cousin Mumu, who was born in China; Royston Tan from Singapore tells of the special meaning that making the traditional Popiah dish has for a Chinese family; Midi Zhao from Myanmar follows the death of a grandfather surrounded by Chinese customs in a village in Myanmar; Sun Koh from Singapore makes a small-scale comedy about the commercialisation of the local radio station, influenced by mainland China; Tan Chui Mui from Malaysia composes a poetic, visual reflection on being an outsider and wandering; and Tsai Ming-liang, also born in Malaysia, observes the seventh-storey apartment in which he grew up as a child.
In a powerful future world, everything is perfect but nobody is allowed to talk.
Four male friends meet at a pizza restaurant for a late night of boozing and talking.
A washed-up actress who goes through martial arts training for a comeback role while searching for her identity.
Dream #2 He Slept Too Long
Dream #3 We Need You to Save the World
Ping has come from Penang in the north to Kuala Lumpur to work with her aunt. There she meets John, a young man who keeps trying to approach her. Ping feels increasingly attracted to John, and although she has a boyfriend in Penang she is drawn more and more into his world. Ping loses herself in her love and does all she can to keep John.
Also Directed by Namron
The story follows two groups of secondary school students -- one Malay gang, lead by Khairil (Mohd Zahiril Adzim) and the other one is a Chinese gang, lead by Heng (Nicholas Liew Davis) -- in which both of them regularly looking for a fight because of their racial prejudice.
Set in the underground music scene, this loose adaptation of "Julius Caesar", with Caesar as a skinhead and Brutus as an undercover cop, is about the power struggle between two men.
How far would you research when you write a novel about serial killers? Do you have to think like a serial killer? Do you need to find the emotions and the skills of a serial killer to ensure your character works on paper? In "Psiko: Pencuri Hati", this question consumes the main character Sidi. Sidi is a writer, whose wretched soul is always struggling internally, tries to find some quiet time whilst doing research for his latest novel about serial killers, but finds himself succumbing to the darkness, little by little.
A fiction that revolves around the character of Bakar who – by taking a shortcut – became a victim of delusional promises of Kuala Lumpur. Tracing the course of a one-day journey of his life – we see a life of a man caught between hopes and responsibilities.
In the outskirts and back-alleys of Kuala Lumpur, several individuals with money problems struggle to get their lives straight, find their paths unexpectedly intersecting - with fatal results.
Also Directed by Khairil M. Bahar
Based on the numerous options available on sites such as Facebook, Relationship Status tells the story of a number of KL-ites from all walks of life whose relationships are created, changed and sometimes even ruined by social networking and the way we communicate in this day and age.
1 island hotel, 12 people and a murder. During the commencement of the first MCO, a famous guest is found dead in Hotel Cahaya Bulan. Everyone seems to have a motive and Ameera the Hotel Manager investigates. Will she be successful in catching the murderer?
A story about a female assassin being hired by a businessman to track and kill a whistle blower. Based on the short story "The Kill Wish" by Catalina Rembuyan
CUAK, which roughly translates to 'cold feet', follows the story of Adam on the verge of getting married and having second thoughts as he goes through the events that lead up to this moment - how they first met, the in-laws and best friends and making tough decisions such as converting ones religion to get married. The film is uniquely told by 5 directors who each direct each of these events as segments of the film, combining together to make one full narrative in a variety of different styles - ranging from drama and comedy to noir and mockumentary - making CUAK a truly Malaysian movie with themes that resonate with a universal audience regardless of race or religion.
Based on the reality TV show, the film centers around a dance crew from Penang hoping to enter the 'Showdown' competition in KL and discover more than they bargained for.
CIPLAK centers around Jo, a Malay student studying overseas who brings in pirated DVD's from Malaysia back to the UK to sell on the black market. But when KL is hit with a nationwide piracy raid on his last day in the country Jo has to do whatever it takes in 24 hours or suffer the consequences.
Also Directed by Liew Seng Tat
The shadow of an African immigrant in an abandoned house was mistaken for a ghost and the hilarious situations that ensued, creating havoc in a quaint Malay village.
Two boys, Li Ahh and Li Ohm, grow up motherless. Their father, Sui, is a workaholic who shuts himself out of the world. The boys' quest to reach out to their father leads them to adopt a puppy. But when the animal is sent away for being a nuisance, the boys are devastated. For the first time, Sui realizes that all his children ask is simply to love and be loved.
Exercise in its own form of absurdism. Jokes are good if you tell them well. Strange jokes have to be told even better. The maker likes really strange jokes and that's why he practices telling them well. Man takes his injured friend to the hospital. There it becomes apparent that a leg is missing.