The Kota Kinabalu International Film Festival recently celebrated the end of the Sabah Film Lab, their prestigious 8-day filmmaking course, with a screening of all 4 short films from all four teams.
The Sabah Film Lab, which was sponsored by FINAS under the Program Pembangunan Modal Insan Industri Kreatif, welcomes 21 participants who are broken down into 4 teams; namely 1 documentary team and 3 narrative team. After 2 days of theory class on pre-production, production and post-production, all teams will then have a hands-on experience where they are to shoot and produce their short films with the help and close guidance of the SFL mentors.
We are proud to have 6 mentors on board this year; whom are all successful filmmakers, editors, animators, DoPs, and producers in their films.
Mr. Isazaly Isa
Miss Putri Purnama Sugua
Mr. Ahmad Yazid
Mr. Roy Taoho
Ms. Hikaru Toda
Mr. Mark Overett
One of the mentors, Miss Putri Purnama Sugua, is an alumna of the Sabah Film Lab from 2017 and have since been a successful filmmaker and advocate for stateless children in Malaysia.
On the last day of the program, teams then premiered all their films at the KKIFF Awards Night where each director get to introduce their films and their experience throughout the program.
Sabah Film Lab mentors – Roy Taoho and Hikaru Toda giving their mentors’ comments on the SFL participants
SFL mentors; Ahmad Yazid, Hikaru Toda and Puteri Purnama with Ms. Yee I-Lann, FINAS Sabah Board Member and Documentary Team members
SFL mentors; Roy Taoho, Isazaly Isa and Mark Overett with Datuk Clement Yeh (Chairperson Board Kian Kok Middle School) and Narrative Team 1 members.
SFL mentors; Ahmad Yazid, Hikaru Toda and Puteri Purnama with Ms Furabayashi, Director-elect, The Japan Foundation KL, and Narrative Team 2 members
SFL mentors; Roy Taoho, Isazaly Isa and Mark Overett with Datuk Adeline Leong, Patron of KKIFF, and Narrative Team 3 members
All smiles featuring all SFL mentors, participants, GOH Dato’ Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib (CEO of FINAS) and Jude Day (Festival Director)
The KKIFF would like to congratulate all the teams’ hard work into producing their films! It’s no easy feat to produce a film in less than 10 days but they did it! Special thank you to the students of Kian Kok Middle School who acted as ‘Shadows’ but also a great member of the teams.
Big congratulations also, to the recipients of the Mentors’ Award; honouring participants who had made such a big impression to the mentors be it in leadership and contribution to their teams and others.
Amir Rahim
Cristy Markus
Mentors’ Award recipients, awarded by our Guest of Honour, Dato’ Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib (CEO of FINAS)
We would also like to extend our gratitude and congratulations to all of our six incredible mentors for leading these young filmmakers who we hope to make a big impact in the Malaysian film industry – many of them are already there! Big thank you to FINAS for supporting SFL 2024, with whom without their support, SFL would not be a reality this year.
