As featured in UNRESERVED Magazine Jan 2020
Story by Mikha Chan
Nadira Ilana is part of the vanguard, if not at the forefront, of East Malaysian filmmakers, bringing stories from Borneo to the rest of the nation. The 32-year-old was the first East Malaysian filmmaker to receive the Justin Louis Grant for her documentary, The Silent Riot, a political-historical documentary on the 1986 Sabah riots.
She has been on the panel of judges for the BMW Shorties short film competition for the past few years, and currently advises the government on East Malaysian filmmaking. Nadira spoke to us recently about her decade as an independent filmmaker, how passion can be construed as aggression, and about amplifying the voices of East Malaysians worldwide.
Watch the video interview below.