By Diah Sekarwidhi

This festival is a space for the exchange of the culture and history of South East Asia, through documentary works, films and photography. The organizer, lead by Iwan Setiawan, brought together documentary filmmakers and photographers, the public, mainstream media, as well as business owners, in sessions such as ‘Workshop Documentary Film and Photography’, ‘Sharing with Documentarian’, ‘ASEAN Documentary gathering’ and ‘ASEAN Documentary Creative Industry Forum.’

EngageMedia was invited to screen a documentary film from Seelan Palay, ‘Singapore, One Nation Under Lee’, and to lead a discussion around the challenges in South East Asia documentary film.

This documentary film festival was a really great way to encourage and support local documentary filmmakers to be known in regional. As their programs will nurture more local talent with more personal issues. The ASEAN documentary gathering also discussed taking more steps to use videos to take action, using Papuan Voices as an example, which is distributed with study and screening guides.

Viva Documentary Film!