‘Dear Child, How Are You?’

Explores and features the perspective of various education systems, providing audiences different insights to different education philosophies which will help to widen the perspectives of parents and educators alike to find a balance, and educate our next generation in a better way.

The 4 episodes will feature each education system for sharing purposes and will not praise nor criticize each of them as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are objective and judgmental. We hope for our docu-series to initiate parents into contemplating and discussing; to plant a seedling into their hearts to think about the true needs of their children.

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Episode 1 :

The Journey of Sinje

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First episode talks about Sinje Lee, the various aspects as a modern, working mother bringing the audiences a trip back to her hometown, Alor Setar where she grew up, reminiscing her childhood where she had enormous freedom, growing up in a big nature environment, allowing her to live fearlessly and with a strong positive mind.

Then, it extended to her daily life in the city, looking back at her journey from taking care of her stepdaughter in her 20s to being pregnant and giving birth to two twin sons at the age of 40. She even shared her joys and sorrows, as well as the people and things that worth to learn and inspire in her life.

It also talks about how she keeps her children’s innocence in life with a pure soul, especially in the urban city and despite her busy life, how she still meditates, draws and focus on her creations daily while taking care of her family in a positive way.

 

Tan Seng Kiat
  • Film Director / Writer / Cinematographer
  • DIRECTOR of ‘The Journey of Sinje’

 

Born in Kuala Lumpur and graduated from the Department of Motion Picture of National Taiwan University of Arts, Tan Seng Kiat specialises in script writing, directing, and filming. He has participated in various filmography productions in Malaysia and Taiwan. In 2013, he won the BMW Shorties Grand Prize with the short film ‘33°C Fall in Love’. He is a two-time recipient of the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion Grand Prize, winning for ‘Shuttle Life’ and ‘One Fine Day’. ‘Shuttle Life’ went on to become his debut feature for the nomination of Best New Director at the 2017 Golden Horse Awards.

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Episode 2 :

Hilltop House

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Hilltop is a kindergarten based on Waldorf Education in the center of Kuala Lumpur. The founder cum principal Ms Audrey felt that the suicide incidents of children in society has increased many years ago and thought about the problems of modern institutional education. Since she has always been concerned about children’s issues, she decided to engage in children’s education, hope to give children a loving learning environment.

Waldorf Education is based on an educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher who founded Anthroposophy. Waldorf Education is aims to inspire each child’s unique capacities, providing them a space to be creative and have fun.

In the documentary, Principal Audrey will share with us the concept of Waldorf education and the extended teaching model. From the children living in school, we can feel that different ages children are really enjoys to explore with natural, freestyle and non-instructional play  through their  learning process. At the same time, the documentary also will share from the perspective of parents, how is the impact and inspiration in themselves and their children after accepting non-mainstream education that promotes the balanced of development of body, mind and soul.

 

 

 

Sinje Lee
  • Actress / Singer / Producer
  • DIRECTOR of ‘Hilltop House’

 

Sinje Lee was born in Malaysia. She is an actor, singer, artist, writer, producer and full time mother. As early as in high school, she was discovered in the new talent recruitment competition by Director, Sylvia Chang. After that, she began to release her album and also participated in many TV commercial.

 

Sinje leaded as a main actress in her first film, ‘ Betelnut Beauty’ and won the Best New Actress Award at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival in Germany. With the movie ‘The Eye’, she won numerous Best Actress Awards. In 2012, she served as one of the judges of the Taipei Film Festival. In 2017, she served as a judge for the Golden Horse Awards.

 

In 2016 and 2017, she served as a goodwill ambassador for the first and second Malaysian Film Festivals. The film project ‘Abang Adik’, which was the first producer, was selected for the Golden Horse Venture Capital Conference and was awarded the FPP  Award. With years of experience in the art world, this documentary will be her new attempt and the first work she directs herself.

 

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Episode 3 :

We Rode An Ostrich

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‘Homeschooling’ was originally popular in the United States and other Western countries as a growth method in which parents arrange their own education at home. The flexibility of homeschooling promotes

the growth of children to become very individualized. This episode will use two families with different backgrounds to see how their parents educate their children in their own way.

The first family parents love nature. They often teach their children through nature, and let their children

learn to connect with nature and get along with natural creatures. We will see how children interact with

nature, how to overcome the fear in their hearts when facing wild animals and gradually become braver

and more loving in the process.

The second family parents believe that every child should be given more space to explore what they like to

The children has grown up through homeschooling and are doing what they like to do. The audience

will also see the role played by parents, how to accompany their children to overcome difficulties and

grow together.

 

 

Kethsvin
  • Director/ Writer / Producer
  • DIRECTOR of ‘We Rode An Ostrich’

 

 

A Malaysia-born director, Kethsvin has started producing， directing and writing scripts for movie， tele-movies， sitcoms， reality shows and TVC since 2007.  His first telemovie <Superb Match Makers (2010)，won the Best Festive Award at 2012 Golden Awards.

 

His next telemovie <Happy Family> was nominated Best Screenplay at Asian Television Award 2012. In 2013 his telemovies <Lucky Bowl 1& 2 > has participated in the 19th Shanghai Television Awards.  In 2014，his co-directed The Game 2 was nominated as the Best Telemovie in Spain’s Zoom Festive and won him a Best Director nomination.

He was also nominated for Best New Director and Best Editing in the 25th Festival Film Malaysia for The Cage (2015). In 2016, his first movie screenplay <Hello Tapir> nominated as Early Bird New Director Film Fund organized by HKIFF, the <Hello Tapir> movie completed in year 2020 and nominated as The Best Visual Effect in Taipei Golden Horse Award.

 

 

 

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Episode 4 :

Who Am I

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Malaysia government implemented compulsory primary education in West Malaysia and East Malaysia in 1962 and 1966 respectively, and all school-age children who have reached the age of seven should go to school. The school system of primary school is six years, and the curriculum mainly aims at cultivating students’ ability of reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as elementary knowledge of nature, humanities and society.

Malaysia education is the education system that most parents in Malaysia choose for their children. Besides heavy schoolwork, this system also evaluates students’ abilities based on test scores. This has prompted teachers, parents and children to measure everything in grades.

Parent- child- teacher, the three dependent relationships, how to achieve balance and survive in this paranoid system? This documentary will enter national type Chinese Primary Schools and shoot several new generation teachers to see how they work silently under the rigid system and numerous restrictions

and use infinite patience and love to create interesting, flexible and inspiring teaching ways to make

children enthusiastic in learning.

 

Tan Seng Kiat
  • Film Director / Writer / Cinematographer
  • DIRECTOR of ‘Who Am I’

 

Born in Kuala Lumpur and graduated from the Department of Motion Picture of National Taiwan University of Arts, Tan Seng Kiat specialises in script writing, directing, and filming. He has participated in various filmography productions in Malaysia and Taiwan. In 2013, he won the BMW Shorties Grand Prize with the short film ‘33°C Fall in Love’.

 

He is a two-time recipient of the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion Grand Prize, winning for ‘Shuttle Life’ and ‘One Fine Day’. ‘Shuttle Life’ went on to become his debut feature for the nomination of Best New Director at the 2017 Golden Horse Awards.