Malu

After my first two features, River of Exploding Durians and Aqérat, which were both explorations of Malaysia’s sociopolitical history in different ways, I felt the need to turn inward. With MALU, I wanted to make a film that was more intimate and emotional, exploring generational trauma, the bond between sisters, the complicated ties of family, and the passage of time.At the heart of the film are two sisters who are separated as children and grow up to become strangers. Their story begins on an island in Malaysia, amid memories of childhood and a family already beginning to fracture. Decades later, it carries us to the neon-lit mystery of Yokohama, Japan, where the past continues to linger in unexpected forms, before finally ending in a landscape transformed entirely by snow.I was interested in how time changes our memories of the people closest to us, and how distance (both emotional and geographical) can reshape a family. Yet some connections remain, even after years of silence and separation. The sisters in MALU may barely know each other as adults, but they remain bound by the childhood they once shared, by their memories of their flawed mother, and by things that were never spoken between them.For me, MALU is ultimately a film about what remains after time has passed: fragments of memory, unresolved feelings, and the invisible bonds we carry with us even when the people we once loved have become strangers.