MIRI: Come Oct 8, aspiring filmmakers and interested members of the public will be able to attend an industry talk by Indrani Kopal, a Malaysian award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of the Far East Documentary Centre.
The talk, which is among the highlights at the upcoming Open Day of Curtin University, Sarawak (Curtin Sarawak), is hosted by the university’s Faculty of Humanities.
It will be held in the LTBS 11 lecture theatre at the Faculty of Business (Heron 2) from 1pm to 3pm. Admission is free.
“Indrani will talk about her experiences as a documentary maker and how to tell compelling stories about real people and contemporary issues in documentaries, as well as how she gets inspiration for her works,” said Curtin Sarawak yesterday.
She has more than a decade of experience in the film industry, bagging numerous national and international awards for her intriguing productions that highlight contemporary issues by capturing the everyday lives of her subjects.
Her award-winning documentaries include the much-acclaimed and captivating 17-minute-long ‘The Game Changer’ which
features the contribution of a dancer to the Rehabilitation through the Arts Programme at the Woodburne Correctional Facility in New York.
The documentary won her the coveted Best Student Documentary Award at the 2015 American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2014, it was named the Best Short Documentary at the 2nd Annual Northeast Film Festival and Harlem International Film Festival.
It has been accepted in 10 other film festivals in the United States, the latest being the Windrider International Student Film Festival 2016.
Indrani is no stranger to the local film scene. She was named one of Women’s Weekly Malaysia’s ‘Great Women of Our Time’ for arts and media.
Her passion and commitment to social issues in the country and her 15-minute long documentary ‘She’s My Son’ on the highly sensitive issue of transgender in Malaysia won her the Justin Louis Award at
the 2007 Freedom Film Fest, a local film festival dedicated to the promotion of human rights education.
Indrani began her career as a television producer while completing a Bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Communication at Open University Malaysia. She later pursued a Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Studies and Production at Hofstra University in New York on a Fullbright Scholarship in 2012.
She is working on a documentary for Tanjai Kamalaa Indiara Dance School entitled ‘Teacher, The Tradition Bearer’, which is due for release soon.
For more information on the talk, call Tharshni Kumaramasamy at 085-443939 ext 5069 or email [email protected].