Ada Apa Bawah Tanah

my surfacing won 2 awards that night!
you really make us proud my dear.
after the award night hari2 aku beli paper nak check news pasal die.
worth the shot, article bout the festival released in
harian metro, berita harian and news straits times.
can't seem to find in the star and utusan malaysia.
he also made a 3 seconds appearance in Melodi.

this is just the beginning.
from the moment i met him, i know this will happen.
i mean he's very passionate, visionary and he knows
what he's best at.


* this is one of the article taken from NST.

FINAS, the National Film Development Corporation, deserves a pat on the back for its recent Festival Filem & Video Pelajar Malaysia which received good response from students all over Malaysia but also showed marked improvement in entries.

The number of entries received also shot up significantly from 118 in 2006 to 208 in 2007.
“Some of the entries were really good while some had the idea and creativity but were poorly executed. They seemed to miss the target. We will have to analyse why, and how some of these works could have been improved,” said Finas director-general, Mohd Mahyidin Mustakim.

The festival was held at Universiti Malaysia Sabah from Dec 29 to Jan 6. The awards night saw 13 categories being contested, seven more than a year ago.
The documentary category was broken up into four categories namely culture-heritage, entertainment-sports, environment-industry development and current issues. Each winner received RM1,000, trophy and certificate.

Amir Salehuddin Ithnin of Aswara (the national arts academy) and Mohd Zulkarnain Azhar of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak each won two awards.

Amir won Best Director for Short Film and Best Short Film awards for his work Batthosai, an adaptation of Samurai X, a Japanese comic series. His 25-minute film featured a cast of seven actors and was done in Japanese.
“My emphasis is on the story and the technique. The story is about war casualties during the Meiji era. I also applied computer-generated imagery in my work,” said Amir, who is currently attached to Finas and plans to go into television animation or documentary production.

Mohd Zulkarnain won the Best Video Documentary (current issues) award for Ada Apa Bawah Tanah and Best Experimental Film/Video award for E-art.

“Ada Apa Bawah Tanah is about underground musicians and their movements. While working on this project I learnt that there is a huge difference between the underground bands in Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia where the former seem to be more united despite being multi-dialect. It is weird but true.
“There has also been a lot of misunderstanding with regard to underground bands and heavy metal music but this is mainly due to the fault of the fans who don’t fully understand what this type of music represents,” said Mohd Zulkarnain, an Astro scholar is expected to work with Tayangan Unggul Sdn Bhd after completing his studies.

Aside from the awards night, a host of activities were organised for the festival, ranging from film and video workshops, an exhibition, film discussions, the launch of Kelab Pencinta Filem and the screening of local movies such as Hati Malaya 1957, Bukit Kepong and Jangan Pandang Belakang.
The screening was held at the university’s Dewan Chancellor and attended by 1,000 students at each screening while the awards night saw an attendance of 1,500 students.


l Best Advertisement/Promo: Street Boarding (Mohd Zulfahdi Ahmad Nawawi from Koelj Yayasan Melaka)

l Best Music Video: Faith — 7 Collar T-Shirt (Mohd Firdaus Anuar, Multimedia University)

l Best Video Animation: Death of Governor (Nadia Mahmud, Multimedia University)

l Best Experimental Video: E-art (Mohd Zulkarnain Azhar, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)

l Best Video Documentary (environment development): Sabah Teh (Norlaji Hamid, Universiti Malaysia Sabah)

l Best Video Documentary (sports-entertainment): Sarawak Sik Cuak (Chai Seng Hui, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)


l Best Video Documentary (current issues): Ada Apa Bawah Tanah (Mohd Zulkarnain Azhar, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak)

l Best Video Documentary (culture-heritage): Rumah Degil (Fathul Rahman Ahmad Ghazali, Akademi Seni Budaya Dan Kebangsaan)

l Best Short Film Director: Amir Salehuddin Ithnin (Batthosai)

l Best Short Film: Batthosai

l Special Jury Award
(three winners):
Kelupis (Norlaji Hamid, Universiti Malaysia Sabah);
Selipar Terbang (Syed Hafizul Hadee Syed Ibrahim, Kolej Yayasan Melaka);
Budak Sampah (Suhiana Mohd Sutki, Univesiti Malaysia Sabah)