Nadira Ilana

Since 2010, independent filmmaker Nadira has been passionately making films set in her home state of Sabah whilst working in Malaysia's film capital of Kuala Lumpur. Nadira's films have always remained personal, using the underlying themes of sociopolitical history, gender and minority stories as well as indigenous identity to peel away at her Borneo-Malaysian identity. Nadira is best known for her documentary, 'The Silent Riot' where she became the first East Malaysian to receive the Justin Louis Grant from Pusat Komas. The film took the Best Human Rights Award at Freedom Film Fest 2013 and is the most viewed documentary produced by the NGO. Her most recent work is part of the award winning Australian new media project, Big Stories where she conducted a film residency in Kampung Bongkud for a whole year, which accumulated to 14 community made short documentaries and 3 photo series. The contents premiered at the village itself in Ranau, Sabah with the support of FINAS Malaysia. Her short and experimental films have screened at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Minikino Film Week 2016, Thai Short Film & Video Festival 2016 and SEA Shorts 2017. With a passion for community building and the arts, between 2014-2016, Nadira programmed short film screenings in KL as well as Kota Kinabalu to highlight Malaysian and Southeast Asian indie films. These were for FINAS Malaysia, Art For Grabs, Urbanscapes 2016 and CineBah film club. In 2016, Nadira founded her own production company, Telan Bulan Films based between Kuala Lumpur and her hometown, Kota Kinabalu. That same year, she was a judge for Pesta Filem Kita by Projek Dialog and BMW Shorties. Nadira is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Campus 2011, Next New Wave Shortcuts 2016, Singapore International Film Fest's SEA Film Lab 2016 and Bucheon NAFF's Fantastic Film School 2017.