Capturing Conservation
Organised by EcoKnights, an environmental NGO, the Eco Film Festival is the first of its kind in Malaysia and now in its third year, the festival is reaching out to international filmmakers from Britain, India, Spain, Netherlands and more. SHARYN SHUFIYAN features Yasmin Rasyid and Eco Film Festival, from the early days to the international success they received thus far.
“Films are vehicles to carry or send urgent messages out about the state of the environment and what we should and should not do. But that doesn’t mean that films can change the way things are – humans can,” Yasmin Rasyid
A subject that is as urgent and multi-faceted as environmental issues is hard to penetrate the minds of an average person, especially if they have already erected a defense mechanism towards these issues. Most Malaysians have not quite grasped the relevance of environmental issues and are still plagued by the tidak apa (don’t care) attitude.
“The human psyche is such that we need to entice their whims with different creative outlets, for them to be able to grasp the message, even if the message is something simple like recycling,” says Yasmin. Even though we are constantly exposed to public announcements and advertising campaigns about the environment and conservation, it only reaches a niche population. Yasmin believes that these campaigns fall short on attracting the public, and that creativity is not in how fancy the advertisements are, but in crafting the programmes that can effectively engage the mindset.
Realizing that Malaysia lacks creative and educational local content about the environment, Yasmin and her ex-staff Taq Latif conceptualized the Film Festival in 2008. “Because films are the windows of real life situations, and also speak a million words, we wanted to encourage Malaysian filmmakers to be our spokesperson through the development of films that can best represent the current environmental situation, solutions or stories in the country.” Now in its third year, the film festival has opened its doors to international submissions attracting filmmakers from Britain, India, Spain and Netherlands, to name a few.
Since its birth, the festival took off successfully even with limited funds. The first Eco Film Festival in 2008 attracted 6500 visitors and received endorsement from the then Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment who attended the award ceremony.
The event also attracted media coverage through mainstream media and the festival saw continued success in 2009 as the films were screened to full houses every Sunday in October of that year.
Filmmakers from all genres have entered the festival. Interestingly, most of these filmmakers did not have a green background and most of them have never even thought about the environment before they entered the competition. For filmmaker Audrie Yeo, she was more interested in making compelling films rather than pushing an environmental agenda. But after entering the festival and winning the 2008 Eco Film Festival Award, she is now a passionate environmentalist.
“Clearly, the festival has converted someone to an ‘Eco-Knight.’ We have started a chain reaction (with the filmmakers) and we hope this can trickle down to the masses.”
When asked about her own favourite films, Yasmin replies, “for the local films, I thought Wasiat was very moving and emotional. As for the foreign films, Blue Gold as it highlighted an issue we almost always take for granted like water resources, water availability, etc and brought it out and slammed it on the audiences’ face with facts and figures and most importantly of all REAL visuals.”
Wasiat, a film produced by Mohamed Fazry and Norhafizzah Razak shows us the declining state of the environment through the eyes of a 50 year old man, while Blue Gold brings to our attention the issue with water – from depleting fresh water to privatization for profit to water exploitation for political gain – the documentary introduces the struggles for the right to water.
Films with the strongest visuals have an impact on viewers. Especially on those who have not experienced these issues first hand, these visuals show them the reality they have not seen. In Malaysia, we are blessed to have our basic needs met but sadly we exploit our resources blindly. “Most of us are blinded by our daily routines, chasing after money, and meeting other people’s goals, not realizing that the state of our environment is deteriorating gradually on a daily basis. Most of us are not aware of the severity of some of our actions in contributing to environmental deterioration.”
But films can only do so much. Films are great platforms to expose environmental issues and good films can move and inspire the audience. However, human psyche does not change overnight, especially when we are so used to our damaging habits. It is up to the individuals to take action to reduce their impact on the environment or help out however they can. “I just hope we won’t take our own sweet time to be more responsible as time is definitely not on our side.”
Yasmin surmises her hope for this year’s festival that will be held on October 11th-16th. “I hope that Malaysians will see the humanistic side to people who are fighting for the environment and I want to erase the social stigma on environmentalists as tree huggers – I hope it will attract more youths and leave them inspired with ideas and more importantly, to get them all geared up for some kind of positive environmental revolution.”
About EcoKnights
EcoKnights is a non profit, non government environmental organization established in 2005. EcoKnights aspires to be a perfect vehicle to conduct professional environmental programmes, environmental outreach activities for youths and also to support and encourage grassroots support for the environment. EcoKnights also aim to adapt to the psyche of Malaysians and current trends so that creative outlets can be produced to change the way Malaysians think about, use and manage the environment.
For more information on Eco Film Festival 2010 and how to enter, visit EcoKnights.
This article was published in Wild Asia, 25th March 2010.
