MALAYSIAN filmmaker Chen Yih Wen’s 'The Boys Club' debuted at the 39th Busan International Short Film Festival (BISFF), winning the Netpac Award, the first for a Malaysian documentary.
'The Boys Club' follows Chen’s journey in making her first feature documentary, and reveals her deeply personal and harrowing experience of enduring sexual harassment, bullying and misogyny.
On winning the Netpac Award, Chen says, “I’m honoured by the recognition from BISFF at our world premiere. As a journalist myself, it was even more meaningful to receive the news on World Press Freedom Day.
"Media freedom is one of the issues highlighted in 'The Boys Club'. Journalists shouldn’t be harassed at the workplace, or for doing their work.”
Apart from travelling the festival circuit, Chen and her executive producers hope to use the film for a greater cause. They wish to provide the film as an educational toolkit for sexual harassment training and awareness.
They also want to lobby for a more comprehensive and survivor-centric Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill, a law that has been more than over 20 years in the making in Malaysia. Chen is working with the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) on the film’s impact campaign.
Regionally, she is working with award-winning Indonesian film producer Mandy Marahimin to run a similar campaign in Indonesia.
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The Netpac Award is given at select international film festivals to promote Asian cinema as a means to highlight exceptional films and discover new talents. According to BISFF, the judges were blown away by the director's bravery, her determination to not give up on her film, and her fascinating documentary storytelling ability.
The jury believed that the sole Malaysian film at BISFF this year was worthy of the Netpac Award as it sheds light on the Asian filmmaking scene in relation to the '#MeToo movement.' It encourages us to stand in solidarity with survivors, while also reflecting on ourselves.
'The Boys Club' will make its Oceania premiere at the Doc Edge Festival 2022, an Oscar-qualifying international documentary festival. It will celebrate its 17th edition as a hybrid festival, in-theatre (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch) and online with 113 films over 40 days, from June 1 to July 10, 2022.
The film will also be made available to Malaysian audiences via virtual cinema. Tickets can be purchased on the festival’s website.
At the same time, The Boys Club will also make its US premiere at the 21st San Francisco Documentary Festival, as part of the ‘Shorts 7: She Dares to Defy’ programme. The hybrid festival will run from June 1 to 12.
It features the best documentaries from around the world at the Roxie Cinema, the oldest arthouse theatre west of the Mississippi. The city of San Francisco is the second-largest film market in the US. More than 9,000 documentary lovers and industry professionals will be in attendance.
BISFF, which took place from April 27 till May 2, is the oldest short film festival in Korea and is recognised as an Oscar and Bafta qualifying festival.
This year, a total of 3,243 films from 111 different countries were submitted, where the selection committee shortlisted 40 films from 37 different countries for the International Competition and 20 for the Korean Competition. – The Vibes, May 18, 2022
