Putri Purnama Sugua

Putri Purnama Sugua (31) is a vivacious filmmaker from Sandakan, east of Sabah, Malaysia known for her passion for the issues of stateless children. Her thesis short film, 'Dream To Fly' won awards at local and international film festivals and in 2017, she was awarded as Best Young Filmmaker at the Malaysia Digital Film Awards. After completing her undergraduate studies in Screen at Faculty Film, Theatre and Animation, UiTM 2016, she pursued her career in the film industry by freelancing. At the same time, she established her own production company called DREAM TO FLY. With her own production house, she directed a number of web film commercials.

Putri is a Next New wave young filmmaker workshop, ASEAN-ROK Film Leader Incubator (FLY) programme, as well as Asian Film Academy (AFA) alumni. In total she has directed and produced seven short films; five fiction and two documentaries and have received multiple awards internationally such as Silver Awards at Roshd International Film Festival, Iran, Freedom Film Festival. It won the Most Outstanding Film Grant Recipient Award and also had a jury special mention for the Best Short Documentary category in Freedom Film Festival, Malaysia & Top 12th for HFPA Snow Leopard Award at Asian World Film Festival, USA.

She is in the early script development stage for her debut narrative title Hidup Aku Curi (Life I Stole). The project has received Script Development Funds from Asian Cinema Funds (ACF) and presented at Asian Project Market (APM) for Busan International Film Festival 2022. Growing up in an underprivileged area made her to be the filmmaker she is today. She wants to be the voice of the marginalised, powerless people through her films.