Mahen Bala

Tonight we had a man who’s on a mission of documenting every little nook & cranny of what makes Malaysia and it’s people special: the culture. His name is Mahen Bala, an award winning documentary photographer, writer and filmmaker based in Kuala Lumpur who has a strong liking for kopitiams.

 

Mahen places a priority towards showcasing the lesser seen parts of the Malaysian identity, heritage, history and culture. His lengthy list of films covers the untold cornerstones of our people, ranging from the stories from the fishermen of the east coast, the migrants who seek Malaysia as a new paradise of life and traditions which are detrimental to some here.

Mahen popped on the Malaysian film radar with his eight-minute short film Plan B, a story of how Mahen’s shoot at the sea failed due to his crew falling ill. He was shortlisted as a finalist for the 2010 BMW Shorties. He met a John W. J. Cho at the awards and soon formed a filming friendship. By 2012, Mahen and John released the short film The Apprentice. A story about an old man running a 60 year-old photo shop in the middle of KL. The film went on to be the official selection for a few international film festivals.

 

Soon after, Mahen was hired by Astro to create a 14 short film series titled My Hometown. Each episode takes place in one of the 14 states, highlighting tourist spots, cultural heritage sites and local delicacies. Mahen went on to create a short film documentary about KL’s dying breed of old-school kopitiams titled kopitiam. The film went on to be a winner at WAN-IFRA Asian Awards 2014 for Best Online Video.

Recently he worked with TimeOut KL for the app relaunch and for a short film where he documented one of Malaysia’s dying breed of film projectionists. Lastly, Mahen is the director of photography for John Cho’s upcoming short film Salvaj which guest stars our previous guest Dawn Cheong.

For the record, Mahen scored 18!

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