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Malaysian powerhouse Astro Shaw has joined forces with Sympatico, the newly minted production label from Double Vision’s Min Lim and Argo Films’ Richard Johns, as the outfit commences production on its debut feature “Mojo.”

The romantic comedy, which began lensing this week in Malaysia’s picturesque Perlis region, marks a significant milestone in cross-cultural collaboration between Southeast Asian and British filmmaking talents.

Indonesian heartthrob Adipati Dolken (“Shadow Strays”) makes his Malaysian film debut as Adi, starring opposite local sensation Mimi Lana (“The Experts”) in this tale of urban ambition meeting rural charm – with a social media-famous bovine thrown into the mix. The story follows Adi, a corporate climber at Moo Magic Farms who turns a distinctive cow named Mojo into a viral sensation while pursuing aggressive rural farm acquisitions. His plans take an unexpected turn when he encounters a resistant farming community and its determined inhabitants, including Ayu (Lana...

Having won five awards already from festivals around the world including Locarno, “WAShhh” continues its extensive festival run, currently screening at Red Sea.

Washhh is screening at Red Sea Film Festival

The National Service Training Programme in Malaysia, which started in December 2003, began as way to encourage friendship between youths of certain ages from different races and ethnic groups and address concerns that the country’s multi-ethnic and multi-cultural groups who were seen of “becoming increasingly isolated from one another”. Although its purpose seemed benevolent a number of issues arose through its active years, including a number of accidents even including deaths. The program was abolished in 2018, although on 9 October 2023, Defence Minister Mohamad Hasan announced in parliament that the National Service would be revived, albeit at a renewed and downscaled structure. Mickie Lai takes inspiration from the whole concept in order to present a story filled with pointed commentary.

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Shooting a romantic sex comedy in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore (that co-produced the movie along with Hong Kong's One Cool Film Production), where censorship borders on the Draconian, is not exactly an easy feat, even more so when the story makes a series of rather pointed comments against the ways religion functions and the blights of patriarchy. It is what M. Raihan Halim chose to do nevertheless, in a film that manages to retain its lightness and hilarity, even though its subject matters are rather serious.

La Luna is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam

The story takes place in Kampong Bras Basah, a small village were the undisputed leader is Tok Hassan, an elderly scholar whose intense strictness regarding Muslim laws has resulted in fashion magazines being manually censored, sermons being purged of humor and teenage art being deemed a matter of police concern. His authority, however,...

Ahead of its release to select theaters, Virtual Cinema, VOD & Digital on October 29 from Film Movement, we have an exclusive look at Roh:

"Cut off from civilization, a single mother puts her children on high alert when they bring home a strange young girl caked in clay. She tells of spirits and spirit hunters and after spending the night she delivers an ominous prophecy: the family will all soon die. As strangers begin to show up on her doorstep, and terrible events crop up around them, she quickly finds another reason to fear the forest. This eerily atmospheric folk horror tale marks the stunning directorial debut of seasoned visual effects artist, Emir Ezwan. From the ominous lighting, off-kilter tone, isolated locations and strange goings on, Roh is a visceral, spine-tingling revelation."

Written and Directed by: Emir Ezwan Cast: Farah Ahmad, Mhia Farhana, Harith Haziq, Nam Ron, Junainah M. Lojong,...

Though horror movies have increasingly gravitated toward jump scares and computer-generated FX, often the genre’s most unsettling exercises eschew such tricks for quiet, unadorned menace. That’s certainly the case with “Roh,” which was Malaysia’s submission for the best international feature Oscar last year. Belatedly getting released to U.S. virtual cinemas, VOD and digital formats on Oct. 29, .

After a wordless opening sequence in which we see her incongruously presiding over some fiery nocturnal burial rite, a filth-covered, knife-clutching little girl (Putri Nurqaseh) wanders from the jungle to a small hut. There, husband-abandoned Mak (Farah Ahmad) lives with teenage daughter Along (Mhia Farhana) and younger son Angah (Harith Haziq). They take in the stray, assuming she got lost on an outing and needs returning to a village across the river. But once this wraithlike wee visitor finally speaks, she says, “When the moon is full, all of you will die,...

Fourth quarter release scheduled.

Film Movement has acquired North American rights to Malaysian Oscar submission and horror film Roh (Soul).

The distributor plans a theatrical and virtual cinema release in the fourth quarter of this year followed by home entertainment and digital roll-out.

Roh centres on a single mother cut off from civilisation whose children bring home a strange young girl caked in clay.

The newcomer tells of spirits and spirit-hunters and after spending the night she delivers an ominous prophecy: the family will all die soon.

Roh marks the feature directorial debut of visual effects artist Emir Ezwan, and stars Farah Ahmad,...

Malaysia has selected art-house horror film “Soul” (aka “Roh”) as its contender in the Academy Awards best international feature film section.

Set in an indeterminate period in the past, the film tells the story of the arrival a small girl who brings ominous predictions and strange incidents to a poor family living in a forest.

The selection was made by a special committee arranged by the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) and was announced on Wednesday. “The selection went through a detailed evaluation process based on filming criteria like direction, storyline, cinematography, screenplay, acting, music score, artistic elements and editing apart from adhering to the rules set by the organizers of the Oscars,” it said.

A first feature by Emir Ezwan, the film had its world premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival and then the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival, both this time last year. In summer 2020, it also played...

Action and horror flicks are, probably, the two most popular genres in Malaysian cinema, with films like “Munafik” and its sequel being the first that come to mind. It is, thus, always joyful to discover directors that try to do something different within the latter genre, with Emir Ezwan’s feature debut definitely falling under this category.

“Soul” screened at Udine Far East Film Festival

The story takes place inside and around a traditional Malay house in the middle of the forest, where a family of three makes a living in the woods in an unspecified time period. The two kids, Along and Angah, spend most of their time placing traps in the forest and bringing home the animals caught, for their mother, Mak, to cook, but it is during this task that they first encounter a grotesque sign that something is going wrong. A bit later, a young girl...

After the international acclaim of Two Sisters, Malaysian-based Kuman Pictures set out to make a second effort with their low-budget, cost-effective style which looks to become their trademark production style. Tapping up-and-coming director Emir Ezwan for his first full-length effort, the film is set to appear in Malaysian theaters March 19, 2020.

Living in a remote jungle village, Angah (Harith Haziq) and his family, mother Mak (Farah Ahmad) and sister Along (Mhia Farhana) find a feral girl (Putri Syahadah Nurqaseh) alone in the woods and decide to bring her into their home. Trying to get through to her, instead, the young girl wakes them one morning and offers a dire warning of the future before killing herself, which the family writes off as the trauma from living alone in the jungle for so long. When they begin to suffer a series of strange and bizarre supernatural misfortunes they seek the help of...