A filmmaker who could take on serious topics such as racism and intolerance with wit, intelligence and humour, who documented and celebrated Malaysia… - Yasmin Ahmad

For me today, the most important filmmaker alive, for me personally is Pedro Almodóvar. Because he takes people on the fringes of society and they are bizarre. And If you read about them in the newspapers, you would think they were criminals. But in an Almodóvar film, you forgive them and you even learn to love them, which I think is closer to godliness, than making a film about good people running around.

Chaplin always infuses humor with great drama. I think that what life is. Life is never just humorous, never just tragic.

Ahmad's films are deeply inspired by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and display scenes of everyday life with a depth of emotion. The Yasmin Ahmad retrospective was a unique opportunity for the people of Hawaii to hear stories from a part of the world that often goes underreported here in the west.