Malaysian Film ‘Stone Turtle’ Bags FIPRESCI International Critics Prize at Locarno Film Festival

Woo Ming Jin, who helmed the film was also up for the Best Director prize, while the lead actors, Malaysian Bront Palarae and Indonesian Asmara Abigail, were nominated for the Best Actor and Best Actress awards.

The Locarno Film Festival, was held from 3-13 August 2022 in Switzerland, marked the first full-scale edition the festival since the onset of the pandemic as well as its 75th anniversary.

The Malaysian-Indonesian flick tells the tale of Zahara (played by Indonesian actress Asmara Abigail), a stateless refugee who lives on a small remote island in Malaysia, where she makes a living selling turtle eggs.

Samad (played by local heartthrob Bront Palarae) then visits the island whilst claiming to be a university researcher, wanting to employ Zahara to show him around. Inspired by local myths and fairy tales like ‘The Little Mermaid’, the story unfolds of how Zahara and Samad become entangled in a dangerous dance of duplicity and deception.

Drumroll, please! Although the film missed out on the top prize to a Brazilian film, they managed to clinch a trophy in the FIPRESCI Prize category, also known as the International Critics Prize, with the jury comprising of representatives of different nations including Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey. Congratulations to the team! You’ve done Malaysia proud!

The jury’s motivation for awarding the prize to the film was it drew “from a variety of traditional myths, speculative futures to social realist observations and performative rituals” and offered “a multiplicity of perspectives on urgent themes such as violence against women, the question of who has a right to citizenship and the way we deal with our natural environment.” Sounds deep and sounds like a fantastic film!

Receiving the award at the ceremony, Woo Ming Jin said, “I’m really happy and surprised. I would like to thank FIPRESCI for giving the film an award. We are really humbled and grateful to be here and this is the beginning of our journey.

We wanted to experiment with genres and we wanted to bring this audience on a roller coaster ride. We hope we can bring this film to the rest of the world.” He also called up his entire team who attended the festival to celebrate with him.

Producer and Editor Edmund Yeo also shared his excitement on his Facebook page, saying “So amazed to receive this historic award!!! This award belongs to the STONE TURTLE family!!!”

No word yet from our local cinemas if they will be screening the movie, let’s hope we’ll be able to catch it ourselves!