Screening: Voyage to Terengganu

with director Badrul Hisham Ismail 

Kisah Pelayaran ke Terengganu / Voyage to Terengganu
2016 | 62min | Da Huang Pictures | Malaysia
Directed by Amir Muhammad, Badrul Hisham Ismail
Produced by Foo Fei Ling

Kisah pelayaran ke Terengganu / Voyage to Terengganu
Terengganu was the only one of the thirteen Malaysian states which filmmaker/writer Amir Muhammad had never visited. And so he decided, together with his locally raised colleague Badrul Hisham Ismail, to shoot a film there. As a basis for their impressionist, occasionally even surrealist documentary, they used the book Voyage to Kelantan (1838) by
Munshi Abdullah (1796-1854). This controversial writer only spent one day in the Sultanate of Terengganu, but that was nevertheless enough for a furious tale about the local population, and especially the men. They were alleged to be lazy and violent.

Voyage to Terengganu contrasts Abdullah’s statements with the everyday reality of today. Disregarding the state’s natural and architectural beauty, Muhammed and Ismail train their camera on several local men, who in brief interviews talk open-heartedly about their culture, their faith, their worries about financial security and the privileges of being a man.

Official website: http://www.dahuangpictures.com/voyagetoterengganu/  
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/159653987 

Details 
Date: 23 October 2018, Tuesday 
Time: 17:00 to 19:00 
Venue: F1A15 
             University of Nottingham Malaysia 
             Jalan Broga 43500 Semenyih Selangor Darul Ehsan 

About the speaker
Badrul Hisham ISMAIL (Malaysia) studied in New York, where he shot his short film A Tale of a Mannequin (2014) with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. Together with Amir Muhammad, also from Malaysia, he directed his first feature-length documentary Voyage to Terengganu (2016). His films were shown among others at Freedom Film Fest, Malaysian Shorts and Thai Short Film & Video Festival. Besides his film work, he is also a Programme Director for the Malaysian nonprofit organisation IMAN Research.