Sabah doesn’t just need films, it needs a film culture, says award-winning filmmaker Nadira Ilana amid industry brain drain

KOTA KINABALU, June 14 — Award-winning Malaysian filmmaker Nadira Ilana (pic) said Sabah’s creative industry was deliberately set back by the National Cultural Policy of 1971, stripping Sabahans of the cultural and linguistic freedoms needed to build a thriving arts sector.

“The creative industries in Sabah was ‘sabotaged’. We actually did have a creative industry, the beginnings of it, from the ’50s when the BBC introduced technologies like radio and cameras. 

Sabahans were making our own documentaries in the 1970s,” she said at the Daily Express Creative Minds Forum 2026, to spotlight and celebrate the voices shaping Sabah’s creative landscape.

The event was held at Oitom restaurant and moderated by Daily Express Senior Journalist Ricardo Unto, himself an award-winning independent filmmaker.

Nadira said the 1971 policy, which centred national culture and language around the Malay identity, made it harder for Sabahan creatives to develop their craft in their own cultural context. 

“Because of those national policies, it dictated whether or not I was able to speak Dusun, whether or not Sabahans could learn about our own history and cultural heritage. And it made things very challenging for a lot of Sabah creatives,” she said. 

Nadira, who has been in the film industry for 16 years, said many talented Sabahans were forced to leave the State to develop their skills, contributing to a serious brain drain. 

“The landscape is now shifting,” she said, crediting years of lobbying by Sabahan arts advocates for helping secure a dedicated ministerial portfolio for the creative economy.

She told the forum that growing Sabahan film audiences required more than just producing content. 

“Sabah lacked the infrastructure to distribute, market and archive films, thus needs a film culture to match its growing output. 

“We need to have a film culture along with the industry. We need to watch each other’s Sabahan films,” she said.

Nadira pointed to emerging talent as evidence that Sabah’s filmmakers were already gaining international recognition, citing directors Putri Purnama Sugua from Sandakan and Ekin Kee Charles, whose experimental video had been screened in Taiwan and beyond. 

She said most universities in Sabah were not screening local films, meaning young filmmakers had little awareness of the work being produced in their own State. 

“This requires community organising and other platforms. If we want to grow Sabahan film audiences, we need to watch each other’s Sabahan films,” said Nadira who leads Cinebah, a small film club she founded to screen Sabahan works and build awareness of local cinema. — Daily Express