KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 — Malaysian director and producer Jin Ong has won yet another award at an international film festival for his first feature film.
Ong earned yet another trophy for his collection at New York Asian Film Festival, where Abang Adik became the first Malaysian film to win its Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film.
The festival, which is in its 22nd year, is North America’s leading Asian cinema festival.
“Winning the Best Feature Film Award means a win for our whole team, it’s not an individual honour,” said Ong in an interview with Malay Mail.
“I also met many Malaysians living in New York so I felt very at home.”
Earlier this year, Abang Adik won the Best Performance award at China’s FIRST Film Festival in July, followed by audience and jury awards at Switzerland’s Fribourg International Film Festival in March and a record-breaking three awards at Italy’s Far East Film Festival in March.
On possibly winning more awards this year, he said: “Yes! We have submitted to other international film festivals and some have given us their official shortlists but we can’t make any announcements for now.”
Ong, a Taiping-born 48-year-old veteran of the Malaysian Chinese entertainment industry, has been producing films since 2014 including Shuttle Life, The Gathering, In My Heart, Miss Andy and The Paradise.
Meanwhile, he has other projects in the works, including a joint production that he hopes will kick off smoothly in Malaysia.
Set in present-day Malaysia, Abang Adik is about two grown-up orphans, brothers Abang and Adi and their fight for survival in the world as Malaysians without documentation.
It stars Malaysian actor Jack Tan and Taiwanese actor Wu Kang Ren as the brothers and marks actress Angelica Sinje Lee’s debut as a producer.
The poignant film in Cantonese, Mandarin, Malay and sign language, is a gripping expose on the hardships faced by KL’s undocumented and disadvantaged.
