Community Filmmaking Workshops Held Alongside Borneo Eco Film Festival

From 25-29 September, Holly Jonas (Natural Justice) joined the SUARA community film-making programme in Sabah, Malaysia, which was held alongside the third annual Borneo Eco Film Festival. SUARA (which means 'voice' in Bahasa Malaysia) is all about celebrating the natural and cultural heritage of Borneo through the voices and perspectives of people from the island. The flagship programme was SUARA KOMUNITI, a year-long capacity building programme that includes village-level workshops with professional film-makers and culminates in the September training with participants from Indigenous and local communities from across Sabah. This year, four of the films made by groups in the intermediate/advanced stream were screened in public during the closing night of the Film Festival and will soon be available on the Festival website.

It also featured SUARA PUBLIKA, a special series of workshops and talks by artists, grassroots organisations, and leading scientists, which this year included topics as diverse as heritage preservation, Indigenous Dusun folklore, hornbill conservation, wetland and mangrove restoration, e-waste, community livelihoods, and marine protected areas.

Please consider supporting the Borneo Eco Film Festival; it is a non-profit event that is truly making a difference in nurturing and amplifying the voices of the Indigenous stewards of Borneo's biological and cultural diversity.