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Showcasing many of the world's award-winning wildlife documentaries, the
first News World International - ASEAN Film Festival will be held 1 and 2
December 2005. The festival will be an integral part of News World Nature's
International Media and Environment Summit being held in
Kuching,
Sarawak, on the fringes of the rainforests of Malaysian Borneo.
Endorsed by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
receiving the personal support of ASEAN's Secretary General, H.E Ong Keng
Yong, the Film Festival is set to become an annual ASEAN event in Kuching.
“We live in one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world. That these
natural resources are precious and ours to protect can be vividly and widely
conveyed through the medium of film. This is why News World International –
ASEAN Film Festival deserves our strongest support. It is an excellent
approach to increase environmental awareness in Southeast Asia,” comments
Mr. Ong.
Malaysia’s Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage, Datuk Rais Yatim, will
open the Festival.
Award-winning documentaries from the BBC, Animal Planet,
France and
India will be included in the
programme alongside the best of wildlife films from South East Asian
filmmakers in Sarawak,
Malaysia and Singapore.
Archive material and the documentaries dealing with the most current
environmental issues will be featured, along with shorts and promotional
films.
"A wildlife and environmental film festival in South East Asia is long
over due", said Alexander Thomson, News World's Managing Director. “Within
the context of an International Film Festival it will be a great celebration
of South East Asia's rich and diverse ecosystems, and considerable
filmmaking talent."
The award-winning documentaries shown at the film festival will add
another dimension to the debates, plenary sessions and workshops included in
the programme of the International Media and Environment Summit, which will
be held over the same period.
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