Khalid Salleh

Motif focuses on a police investigation and its most obvious innovation is the female perspective that the director imposes. Protagonist Dewi (Sharifah Amani) is a police officer who is sent from the capital of Kuala Lumpur to a provincial area, Tanah Merah (lit. “Red Earth”), to investigate the disappearance of the young daughter of the local community’s richest family. From the beginning, her arrival is greeted with distrust by her male colleagues, who are doubly annoyed by the fact of having an outsider who is also a woman intrude in the community.

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Inspector Dewi (Sharifah Amani) is assigned to investigate the case of a missing teenage girl, Anna (Khayrani Kemal) in Tanah Merah, a remote town. Her presence is unwelcome to the townspeople, including her fellow inspector Rizal (Taqim Zaki), and she faces fierce opposition from Anna's father, Hussein (Rosyam Nor), who is also a wealthy man in Tanah Merah and has no faith whatsoever in Dewi's ability to carry out her duties. Many people are suspected of being behind Anna's disappearance - all with their own motives. Could it be Kamal (Azhan Rani), a loan shark, or Anna's ex-boyfriend Azlan (Fadhli Masoot)? Or could it be Anna's mother (Sherie Merlis) who is willing to plot to stake her own child's life? Can Dewi unravel the mystery of Anna's disappearance when she begins to be weighed down by internal conflicts that increasingly haunt her?

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The story of Almayer, a Dutch trader struggling to survive in Malaysia at the turn of the 19th Century. His dream of finding a mythical gold mountain is challenged by his scheming wife, the colonial authorities, the political machinations of the local chief and Arab traders, and his daughter's love for a freedom-fighting Malay prince.

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Zaiton seduces a drifter named Amran into murdering her elderly husband, Ibrahim, to get his money and land.

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The Arsonist involves the struggles of an undocumented immigrant family and a boy's coming-of-age. The son Kesuma must forge his own identity against the intimidating presence of his father Kakang, a man proud of his Javanese heritage and well aware of the social inequalities that allow his exploitation. Kakang counteracts by torching the property of those who slight him, leaving Kesuma simultaneously proud, fearful and ashamed. A clash of wills is all but inevitable. The film climaxes in a poignant conflagration, literal and metaphorical.

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