The term ‘festival’ is common currency in our nation of celebrations — it might be the Moon Festival one month or the Water Sport Festival the next. But while some festivals are affairs to mark on your calendar, our film festivals have yet to receive much attention. The annual Malaysian Film Festival, backed by the National Film Development Corporation of Malaysia (FINAS), is perhaps the glitziest of them all but its selection process has met with controversy.

In 2005, local films with international acclaim, such as James Lee’s ‘Beautiful Washing Machine’ were disqualified on grounds that submissions had to be in 35mm format. Though the festival now accepts digital film submissions the damage has been done. Last year the KL International Film Festival, similarly supported by FINAS, passed by with little ado despite the choice morsels on screen.

The lack of general public interest in state-backed film festivals, however, belies a small but growing number of special interest film events at the grassroots level. For example, making its premiere this year is the Eco Film Fest, organised by local environmental organisation, EcoKnights. Founded two years ago, the group is a motley band of green-minded individuals from different professional backgrounds dedicated to promoting the word of sustainable development. In addition to their community website, EcoKnights also runs environmental outreach programmes for community and industry players and after conducting two years worth of awareness workshops, the Eco Film Fest seemed like the natural progression to get the word out to a larger audience.

Like most film festivals, the Eco Film Fest has a competitive edge to it. Contestants are invited to submit a proposal for a documentary, animation or docudrama to EcoKnights that fulfils the theme ‘Climate Change — A Call For Action’. The contestants of the five best proposals as selected by the organisers will be awarded financial and technical assistance as well as schooled by the country’s top filmmakers and leading environmentalists in two workshops aimed at polishing their films. The completed films will then tour the city, publicly screened at selected venues. And finally, at the last leg of the entire festival, the three best films will be selected to compete at the International Documentary Film Festival in the Netherlands.

In the beginning, the Eco Film Festival was aimed at getting college and university students to participate but after receiving overwhelming enquiries from interested parties who were not students, the festival is now open to Malaysians aged 18 and above. And, while the festival is most likely to attract participants from the creative fields, Yasmin Rasyid, found of EcoKnights, expressed a personal desire to see submissions from the other side of the spectrum. ‘I hope to see more people from a technical or science background (Yasmin is a Biology graduate herself) express their creativity and participate at the festival,’ she confides, ‘These are the people who are more familiar with the problem (climate change) so know what needs to be done to solve it.’

And it is the solutions to climate change that the Eco Film Fest is keen to uncover. While documentaries like Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ were pivotal to increasing awareness, Yasmin thinks its time for action to be taken. Policies on the environment as well as wasteful consumption habits need to be changed and she hopes that the films at the festival will initiate that change. The festival is accepting submissions for proposals or scripts until 15 July and the completed films will be screened throughout the month of October. But if you can’t wait, check out the fruits of these other local film competitions. Interested applicants should mail all proposals to eff2008@ecoknights.com. Screenings are scheduled from 6 October to 16 October at various venues. www.ecoknights.com.

Freedom Film Fest
If the Eco Film Fest yields results anything like the Freedom Film Fest, then we’re in for a treat. The Freedom Film Fest, the brainchild of Pusat KOMAS, a grassroots community media centre, champions human rights through the medium of film. Now in its fifth year, the Freedom Film Fest similarly accepts film proposals based on their annual theme and the winners of the three best proposals are given a bunch of money and support from KOMAS to make their films a reality. The final screening of the winners is complemented with other thought-provoking documentaries on social activism, which is the festival’s claim to fame.

Last year’s winners included an intimate look into a mother’s coming to terms with her transgendered son and a documentary on the disappearing generations-old homes on the Weld Quay jetties in Penang. But top of the class was Fahmi Reza. His entry, ‘Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka’ on the Hartal, an esoteric piece of history in our nation’s struggle for independence, has local critics heaping praise on it and has garnered a small fanbase for itself. This year, the Freedom Film Fest’s theme is ‘Democratic Space - Making Room for Human Rights’ and is scheduled to start its screenings in September. Exact dates and locations will be confirmed on the official website. www.freedomfilmfest.komas.org.

BMW Shorties
This highly-anticipated short film competition is already in its second year and its aim is to provide a platform for aspiring local filmmakers to express themselves. Widely popular, with 62 entries this year, the Shorties have unearthed the likes of Abdullah Zahir bin Omar whose entry ‘K-Hole’ won him a whopping RM50,000 in production assistance to film his professional short ‘Teddy & Me’. This year’s prize was upped to RM75,000, thanks to the giant corporate name behind the competition. All 10 finalists’ films were based on the theme ‘H2O’ and are now available for viewing on the Shorties’ website www.bmwshorties.com.my.

Short, Short Film
Designed for a generation bred on blurbs, snippets and trailers, Short, Short Film is a competition that accepts film entries running no more than 160 seconds. Presented by Apostrophe Gallery, a creative arm of DiGi, the competition is the third instalment of their mini-art projects after Short, Short Story, a 16-words-and-under story writing contest, and Postcards, an art competition where your canvas is a postcard. Six winners out of 16 finalists were flown to Hanoi where they collaborated to produce a short film of the city. You can check out the winning entries at www.apostrophegallery.com.my.