International Wildlife and Environmental Film Festival to be launched in Kuching

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.