Amanda Nell Eu is probably Malaysia’s hottest filmmaker working today. Her debut feature Tiger Stripes is a teen horror movie that flirts with comedy. The film got the Grand Prix Award at Cannes Critics Week, and it was Malaysia’s choice to represent the country at next year’s Oscars, in the International Feature category. The movie has traces of Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976), such as the cruel schoolgirls in the toilet. It also has flavours of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010): both films were filmed in a dense rainforest inhabited by creatures with laser eyes (the biggest difference is that the Malaysian filmmaker favours pink instead of red). It’s a movie made for the TikTok generation. Despite being billed as a horror movie, it is is filled with the tongue-in-cheek humour reminiscent of the teen movie Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004). It is also a feminist film: a girl’s fights for the freedom to be her true self.

I saw the film the previous day and was genuinely moved and impressed with the outcome. I do not share the views of DMovies’ editor Victor Fraga (who reviewed the film earlier this year in Munich).

This conversation in the sumptuous Garden of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, the heart of the 3rd Red Sea International Film Festival (in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). The fashionable Amanda was wearing bright neon green eyeshadow and very talkative, ignoring the timekeeper’s pleas to end our conversation.

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Duda Leite – Tiger Stripes was heavily cut in your home country, Malaysia. How did you feel about such censorship? Fortunately, the Red Sea Film Festival showed the uncut version.

Amanda Nell Eu – It was very sad actually. As a Malaysian filmmaker of course I was prepared for some form of censorship. If you want to release a film in Malaysia, every film has to go through censorship. But the censorship in my country is not very clear. They are very vague. Sometimes things get censored, and 10 years ago, they weren’t. It’s a very difficult place to navigate. So when we went to speak to them, and went through the process, what hurt me the most was what they cut out. Which was the very point of the film: there is so much beauty in this girl. And I think the beautiful part is when she’s free, and just being a young girl. And all those things in general were not shown, they were cut out. So I was like, “that’s not my film”. That’s why I had to say something. Of course, it was for my artistic expression, at the same time to respect the audience to watch the same film that won in Cannes. But when they see the film, it’s not the same one. That was a painful experience to go through. So I had to say something about it. (Amanda made an official statement about that).

DL – I guess censorship is always very random. We had a long period of censorship in Brazil, where I’m from, during the dictatorship and I know how random it could be. Are there many women directors working now in Malaysia?

ANU – There are a few, but you can count them in one hand. It’s the same everywhere else. There are more now, but still not enough. It’s always been a male dominated world. But there are a few. Maybe five. At least prominent.

DL – Do you feel that’s changing?

ANU – I think it is a bit. We are having a few more women voices in the world. It’s really great that Tiger Stripes did so well. And it’s female-led, with a predominantly female crew. I’d love to see more women in the camera department and technical crew in Malaysia. We’re getting there slowly. The steps are moving. When I was a cinema student, it was hard to find female mentors. It was hard to find female directors. All the great legends were male. It’s empowering when you start seeing women in these positions and be prominent in the industry. I think that would give a lot of young women reason to be inspired and go for it.

DL – Talking about the film, I thought it was very original, at the same time it made me think it was a mix of Brian De Palma’s Carrie and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee. Were they references?

ANU – Of course! We worked on this film for five or six years. I grew up watching Carrie. When I was a teenage girl, I watched it and thought it was amazing. Love all the blood and that weird story of a girl finding herself. That was definitely an inspiration. I love horror. It was a huge influence not only for the film, but for me as a person. You always get influenced by so many things. Apichatpong is a legend in my region. So you can’t shy away from what he’s done and produced. It speaks to us. But I guess it’s also mine, and I’m telling it with so much of my personality. And it has so many of my influences. And my influences are not only films, it’s music, punk music, pop music. The colour pink is so me!!! I think I am original, and I like to put a lot of myself. Also, another big reference is the film Mean Girls, which I love. That was also an inspiration.

DL – Tiger Stripes is a horror movie, but it’s also a teen movie. I like the way you mix all these two genres. Was that combination something intentional?

ANU – I always like to play with horror. I grew up watching horror films. I love to use those elements, like claws and things like that. That’s my sense of humour. I find a lot of sense of humor when it comes to horror. I’m the kind who claps when I see lots of blood. And I feel you need to have a sense of humor to really enjoy it. But at the same time, I’m talking about themes that I feel very strongly about. Like the freedom of a young girl’s expression. It’s my personality. I want to have fun when I make the film.

DL – I want to ask you about the use of pink. When you see the eyes of the creatures, they have pink lasers. You’ve mentioned before that in the tradition of Asian culture, the spirits would have red eyes, just like they did in Uncle Boonmee. Why did you choose pink?

ANU – I just love pink! I always talk to my art director who is also my costume designer, and every time she asks me about a colour, I always say pink. And she’s like “why”? I don’t know. It just feels right. It’s one of my favorite colors. I’m kind of playing with these social expectations that pink is for girls, and blue is for boys. I want to push it further. If she’s going to turn into a monster, I want her laser eyes to be pink. And make it dirty, and make it monstrous. With all the baggage that pink carries.

DL – Since we are here in Jeddah at the Red Sea Film festival, how has the Festival been so far for you?

ANU – It’s been great! It’s beyond my expectation of how it would be. It’s very impressive to show the film without any censorship. It meant a lot to me. Malaysia is an Islamic country, just like Saudi Arabia. And it was never my intention to offend anyone or cause any controversy. It’s just a film about a young girl expressing herself. And loving all the monstrous sides of it. So to have it shown here without any censorship makes it very clear what censorship actually is. It’s really nor to protect the people, but really to reinforce whomever is in the political power. Because it makes no sense anymore. So it was amazing to show the uncensored version of the film here.

DL – Sexuality plays a big part in the film. In which ways is the film empowering for young girls?

ANU – I’ve seen all these films of coming of age, like Carrie. And they are really about sexuality, but I think this time I really pushed the idea of sexuality. We have a lot of issues when a young girl has her period, because sometimes she can have it when she’s 8 years old. But when you are eight years old, you’re just learning about these pressures of society, of being a woman, and the things that change because you had your period, and being treated not as a child anymore, but as an adult, and I find that very strange. Because you’re still a child. So it was very important for me in Tiger Stripes, that even with her transformation, she’s a monster and whatever, but she is still a child. That’s why I have that ending, when she’s dancing, and she is still as playful as she was in the beginning. That was very important for me. Go against all these social expectations of what happens when you have your period. And how your life changes. It shouldn’t change. You’re still a little kid, and you should still be able to have fun. And do all sorts of crazy things.

DL – I loved the way you’ve incorporated the TikTok videos in the film. I know that speaks directly to the younger generation. Was that your intention?

ANU – Yes, like you’ve said: TikTok is all about this younger generation. They all look at things on a vertical screen from a screen this size. That’s how they’re getting their information from. Their social life is on it. They are showing how their bodies change. So this is a very important gaze for them. So for the TikTok parts in the film, I asked the girls to record it themselves. This is not our gaze anymore. It’s their gaze so they’ve recorded it themselves.

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Amanda is pictured at the top of this interview. She is pictured alongside Duda in the second picture. Images by Duda Leite