Here's a little excerpt from the article featured in FACES magazine Sept 2011:
WAMM would like to introduce Tony Pietra and Khairil M.Bahar (aka Khai) to you.
Tony has an AIM award for ‘Best Music Video’ in 2007 for Pete Teo’s Lost In America which led to him directing episodes of Niche Film’s horror-thriller Dark City, TV movie Agi Hidup, Agi Ngelaban, Popiah Pictures’ Ghost series on NTV7 – and he is still actively working the scene.
Khai’s work is no less impressive. His first full length feature film Ciplak won the Anugerah Skrin 2006 for ‘Best Alternative Film’. He was part of 15Malaysia with Healthy Paranoia (2009), shot music videos for the likes of ‘One Buck Short’ and ‘Dragon Red’, acted /directed several TV Dramas. He is part of ‘Rollin’ Sixers’ with a brand new released album while acting and directing in plays as well.
Just for fun, I posed a question, “Are you guys Indie filmmakers?”
Khai had this to say, “…the words 'indie film' tend to bring to mind 90 minutes of people looking longingly out of a window whilst it rains but technically Die Hard and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were independent films. At the same time, Mallrats was a complete mainstream studio film but people tend to think otherwise because of the subject matter and cast.”
Khai’s answer resonates with Tony.
Both Tony and Khai may independently execute many projects but refuse to bow down to the traditionally accepted idea of what an indie film is and are out to carve that ‘middle ground’.
Tony is currently in the midst of planning a shoot which revolves around an international collaborative film project currently titled, Train Station which connects dozens of short segments from Directors globally. They will then be pieced together to tell a single but multi-faceted story. The project is part of CollabFeature (www.colabfeature.com) and the movie with Tony’s segment will premiere in early 2012.
Khai is also keeping busy with something closer to home. He is in post-production for Relationship Status. It is something he’s written and is directing himself and is about how social networking affects relationships today. It features a star studded cast of Gavin Yap, Davina Goh, Susan Lankester, Baki Zainal, Tony Eusuff, Amanda Ang, Adeline Ong, Benji Lim, Pete Teo, Ruzana Ibrahim, Daphne Iking, Will Quah, Shuba Jay, Alfred Loh and himself. The movie should premiere at TGV cinemas early next year and you can find out more at facebook.com/relationshipstatusmovie, relationshipstatusmovie.tumblr.com or on twitter @RStatusUpdates.
Stay tuned for more updates right here in FACES and you can also check out WAMM’s site.