FINAS embraces digital transformation with Media Room for Festival Filem Malaysia KE-35

Advancing secure film screening and storage management

KUALA LUMPUR, 4 November 2026 – The National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) has adopted Silver Trak Digital’s Media Room to manage films, screening and jury evaluation for Festival Filem Malaysia Ke-35 (FFM35) replacing a largely manual process with a secure, centralised digital platform.

The platform went live inside less than two working days. Understanding FINAS’ priorities and a tight festival timeline, Silver Trak Digital configured and prepared the Media Room screening portal within that window, a turnaround that reflects how quickly the system can be stood up for a fixed-date event.

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(l-r) YBhg. Dato’ Azmir Saifuddin bin Mutalib, Chief Executive Officer of National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS); YBhg. Datuk Abdul Halim bin Hamzah, Secretary-General of Ministry of Communications; YB Teo Nie Ching, Deputy Minister of Communications; YBhg. Dato’ Dr Hans Isaac, Chairman of FINAS; and Karlz Varma, VP, Business Development – Asia, Silver Trak Digital

Festival Filem Malaysia is the country’s most significant film industry event and the 35th edition carried an estimated 80 plus titles across four categories covering films, short films, documentary and poster. Approximately 70 judges and administrators accessed the platform across the assessment period, spanning FINAS administration and jury members.

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FINAS administrators now organise content, assign films to relevant jury members and track screening progress through a single dashboard. Just as importantly, the platform provides visibility over jury viewing activity, showing engagement and the percentage of each film watched.

That visibility is a meaningful change for a competition of this scale. Organisers can see which titles have been assessed, which jury members are still working through their allocations and where a screening has stalled, without relying on email chains, spreadsheets or follow-up phone calls.

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“The scale of a festival like FFM35 creates a genuine administrative challenge, particularly when submissions arrive from many producers on different timelines,” said Noorzillawati Yahya, Chairperson of the FFM35 Participation and Judging Committee from FINAS. “Media Room gives us one place to manage content securely and understand exactly where every submission sits in the assessment process. It has changed how we run screening administration.”

Media Room is designed around a simple proposition. Content owners need to share valuable material with people and they need to do it without exposing their intellectual property.

Producers submit their films through a controlled platform that helps safeguard their work. Content is protected by DRM, automated recipient watermarking, controlled user access and secure screener sharing, which means a leaked file can be traced to the individual who received it. For an unreleased feature, that is the difference between participating in a festival and accepting a real risk to its commercial future.

Customisable metadata allows producers to upload content with additional information matched to the specific submission requirements of each event, so entries arrive with the detail organisers need already attached.

Karlz Varma VP Business Development at Silver Trak Digital Asia said, “One of the challenges we continue to hear from producers is the time and cost involved in managing day-to-day content operations, from storage and quick access to files to the purchase, handling and delivery of physical hard drives. With Media Room our goal is to simplify these workflows, reduce operational costs and improve accessibility without compromising content security. Producers should feel confident sharing their valuable intellectual property even before release, whether for festival screenings or with potential acquisition buyers. With detailed viewer analytics, they can also understand how buyers engage with their content, helping them make more informed distribution and monetisation decisions.”

The platform simplifies the administrative process of receiving, organising, distributing and tracking film submissions. Streamlined digital workflows of this kind also reduce operational time.

The cost case is equally direct. Media Room reduces reliance on hard disk purchases, physical storage, manual handling and the unreliable online viewing arrangements that compromise security or slow upload and download. For a festival managing dozens of titles across four categories, the savings in time and expenditure are significant and they free staff to focus on the event itself rather than logistics.

FINAS and Silver Trak Digital are exploring opportunities to introduce similar secure digital workflows to Wajib Tayang, the screening framework within the Malaysian exhibition system, along with other FINAS activities. That shift would move away from the current traditional setup and has the potential to reduce physical media costs and administrative effort still further.

Beyond the festival, Media Room gives producers and distributors a route to showcase content securely to authorised buyers, distributors and acquisition teams worldwide. Viewing analytics help content owners understand buyer engagement, which supports distribution and monetisation decisions long after the closing ceremony.

The Media Room platform suits organisations of all sizes, a point Karlz Varma is keen to stress as he concluded, “Put simply, we grow as you grow.”

About FINAS

The National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (FINAS) is the government agency responsible to promote, nurture and facilitate the development of the Malaysian film industry. Further information is available at finas.gov.my

About Festival Filem Malaysia

Festival Filem Malaysia (FFM) is the national film awards ceremony organised by FINAS, recognising achievement across feature films, short films, documentary and poster categories. FFM is actively driving strategic initiatives to elevate its profile to meet international standards matching global benchmarks like the Cannes Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, and Tokyo International Film Festival. The Ministry of Communications, alongside FINAS, has set long-term plans to position FFM among global film festivals that carry official accreditation from the prestigious Academy Awards. The 35th edition is known as Festival Filem Malaysia KE-35 (FFM35).