KOTA KINABALU: Filmmaking is still ‘green’ in Sabah as most of the people here are either doing it as a hobby or merely shooting wedding ceremonies.
But the Sabah Film Academy wants to push that hobby to the next level, said Kota Kinabalu International Film Festival (KKIFF) coordinator David Ngui.
The Sabah Film Academy was created three years ago as one of the components of KKIFF to identify young raw talents in Sabah, he said when met during the ‘Sabah Film Academy –Master Class with the Mentors’ at The Sabah Society in Damai, Luyang yesterday.
The mentors class starting from May 31 to June 6 was conducted by Rick Minnich from USA who now lives in Germany, Jeffri Yusof from Malaysia, Larry Johnson from USA and Thomas Robert from France.
“I notice in Sabah, there are a lot of raw talents, I think some of them are really good but I think they are probably lacking in skill, experience, exposure and self-confidence. And we want to lead them to a different level.
“And throughout a lot of conversation I had with these filmmakers, we felt that what they need is one little push to get them to have the right attitude and mentality to go in the industry because film industry is quite competitive.
“I find that filmmakers in Sabah are still doing it as hobby,” noted David.
He hoped that could be changed through the Sabah Film Academy which mirrored the Asean Film Festival in Busan, South Korea.
David, who is an alumni of the Asean Film Festival, said the programme had successfully trained young filmmakers in creating a network and he hoped to impart that to the Sabah Film Academy.
“The aim of the Sabah Film Academy is to create a platform, training and education programme to train young filmmakers from Sabah with the support of international mentors,” he said.
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