So when Florencia Serrot arrived after a 12-hour flight from Munich via Dubai, I could honestly assure her to relax – everything was in place. On that evening’s preliminary meeting with the local media team, at the SOULed OUTeatery inside the HSC building, the Spanish-born director got a taste of the delicious diversity of this multi-ethnic nation – Malay seafood, Chinese noodles and Indian curry.
The team members were all different by background and personal interest, yet the group élan was palpable. Producer Imee Abdul Rahman has a passion for scuba diving in the Andaman Sea. Cameraman Hor Chin just shot a documentary on an uprising that challenged British colonial rule in Malaya in the 1950s. Photographer Omar Ariff is a legendary figure among environmentalists for venturing deep into mangrove swamps and misty mountains to take close-ups of venomous snakes and giant insects bizarre enough to inhabit Pandora. Malaysia merges the ultramodern urbanity of a Hong Kong with the tropical mystique of Avatar – in short, it was an ideal locale for an article and a film.
text: Clark Shimazu