Liew Seng Tat

Jinjang, animation and an eye for everyday comedy

Liew Seng Tat was born in 1979 and grew up in Jinjang, Kuala Lumpur. The 15Malaysia project biography explicitly identifies Jinjang as his birthplace. In an original 2011 interview, he remembered a wooden family house, mango trees and helping at his mother’s noodle stall. Those recollections offer a more particular background than treating the city only as the address of a film industry.

He studied 3D animation at Multimedia University before moving into live-action shorts. Bread Skin with Strawberry Jam won at the Malaysian Video Awards in 2003, followed by recognition for Not Cool in 2004. The project biography describes a comic sensibility in his work, a quality that would also help his features address serious questions without abandoning ordinary situations.

Sources for this section: [3] · [4]

A filmmaking collective and Flower in the Pocket

In 2004 he co-founded Da Huang Pictures with Amir Muhammad, James Lee and Tan Chui Mui. The company placed his work within a wider network of Malaysian independent filmmakers. Its founding is a different event from the release of his first feature, and should not be confused with the later production company Everything Films.

Flower in the Pocket premiered at Busan in 2007. The festival’s synopsis follows two brothers, Li Ahh and Li Ohm, and their father Sui, who gradually recognises the attention and affection his children need. Everyday incidents, including the boys’ care for a sick stray dog, become ways of revealing a family relationship rather than merely supplying sentimental decoration.

James Lee, one of Da Huang’s co-founders, plays the boys’ father. Rotterdam’s 2008 programme explicitly identifies the role, documenting an acting collaboration as well as the directors’ shared production company.

The film won the New Currents Award and the audience-voted KNN Award at that edition. They were separate honours: the New Currents jury recognised three films, not a single exclusive winner, while KNN reflected audience voting. That distinction gives a more accurate account of the debut’s reception.

Sources for this section: [2] · [5] · [6] · [1]

Developing the second feature across institutions

His next feature took shape over several years. The 15Malaysia biography describes a Cannes residency project provisionally called In What City Does It Live? Torino’s 2014 programme records further development at TorinoFilmLab in 2010 and the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2011, and the founding of Everything Films in 2010.

These were development stages, not a sequence of completed films with each working title. The eventual second feature, Men Who Save the World, carries the Malay title Lelaki Harapan Dunia and dates to 2014. The project history illustrates how a film can connect local production with international development support while retaining a recognisably Malaysian setting.

Sources for this section: [3] · [7]

Men Who Save the World and the limits of solidarity

The story starts with Pak Awang organising neighbours to move an abandoned house as a wedding gift for his daughter. An African migrant hiding inside it is mistaken for a supernatural threat. Suspicion spreads until the same villagers who can cooperate in a remarkable shared task turn against an imagined enemy.

Torino credits Wan Hanafi Su as Pak Awang and Soffi Jikan as Wan; Cineuropa records the film’s 2014 Locarno Cineasti del presente selection. The premise allows cooperation and exclusion to coexist within the same comedy. In his statement for the Torino programme, Liew connected the impulse to act together with the danger of fearing people perceived as different. That stated concern links the village farce to the questions of belonging he also discussed in his earlier interview.

Sources for this section: [7] · [8] · [4]