Amanda Nell Eu on finding her voice as a filmmaker

Following the resounding international success of her debut feature film, Tiger Stripes, filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu opens up about her fascination with the macabre and morbid and her journey of overcoming self-doubt

Growing up, Amanda Nell Eu loved a good ghost story.

From urban legends and spine-tingling folklore to superstitions recounted by family members in solemn, foreboding fashion, these were cherished childhood memories for the young creative, signalling her emerging artistic inclination towards the genre of horror.

One might wonder, did she scare easily as a child? Were these the tales typically used by her older siblings to petrify their unsuspecting younger sister for sport? But even at a young age, Eu realised her true calling was being at the other end of this spooky storytelling tradition; she was the one telling the stories, rather than the one spooked.

“I loved urban myths and folktales that were close to home, macabre stories of what happened in the nearby lake, or that old house we always drove past. I would always scare my younger brother with these stories,” admits the 38-year-old filmmaker, whose love for art and cinema led her to study graphic design at Central Saint Martins, and later pursue a master’s of arts in filmmaking at London Film School, graduating in 2012.

Above Fendi dress; Dr Martens boots

“I would always question old wives’ tales that my elders would tell me. I wanted to know why we believed in so many superstitions, and the answers would always be so fantastic and illogical but somehow it made sense to everyone. I remember being obsessed with horror books about local myths because these were stories that were in our backyard. I had always loved cinema, and it was horror that led me to become a cinephile at a young age.”

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Eu left to study in the UK at the age of 12. In those tender pre-teen days, her uncomfortable experience with puberty was rattling enough to rile up a rebellious instinct to fight her adolescence. “I remember when I was going through [puberty]—one day you are one way, and the next day you wake up and there are things that have grown on your body,” Eu said in a 2023 interview at the 62nd Cannes Critics’ Week.

“I used to wish that this didn’t happen to me, quite violently. I would punch myself, like punch bones and try to shave things off.”

It was this awkward and aggressive experience that gave her the idea for Tiger Stripes, her debut feature art house horror film about a 12-year-old girl from a conservative community in Malaysia, who is the first among her friends to experience puberty; she is further isolated from her peers when it turns out that menstruation quite literally transforms her into a monster.

A milestone for a Malaysian coming-of-age body-horror flick, it became the first Malaysian film to win the grand prize for the best feature at last year’s Cannes’ International Critics’ Week, a platform dedicated to discovering first- and second-feature filmmakers from around the world, and where acclaimed directors including Wong Kar-wai and Guillermo del Toro had their start.

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Eu is the first female director from Malaysia to have a film featured at Cannes. Tiger Stripes was also the first Malaysian film in 13 years to be invited to Cannes; only three others have been chosen for the festival previously: Woo Ming Jin’s The Tiger Factory in 2011, Chris Chong Chan Fui’s 2009 film Karaoke, and U-Wei Saari’s Kaki Bakar in 1995. Outside of Cannes, Tiger Stripes also bagged a prize for the best feature film at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in 2023, the only festival in Switzerland dedicated to fantasy and its related genres.

“2023 has been so crazy, and I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world, which has been amazing,” says Eu. “A restful holiday right now for me would be to lie down on my sofa with my cats and read. Long breaks are great for the creative process. When I was writing Tiger Stripes, I was lucky enough to take part in writing labs that were situated in the most beautiful remote parts of Europe. I think being near nature and having the time to take walks and swim is one of the most important things for a writer.”

Above Nor Neither blouse and skirt; Dr Martens boots

While enjoying the international success that the film garnered, Eu and her producer at Ghost Grrrl Productions, Foo Fei Ling, were crestfallen when the version of Tiger Stripes released in Malaysian cinemas in 2023 was censored. One of the removed scenes depicted blood on a sanitary pad.

“I’d always thought I would be OK with [my work being cut up by the censorship board], seeing so many directors have to go through it from our region,” Eu says. “I thought I wouldn’t care so much because I’d still have had the chance to show my full film to an audience, albeit an international one. But it hurt me to the core.

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“I’m not usually one to speak out loud about things, and I’d rather speak through my stories and my art. To have [my work] censored felt like my voice was being removed, and that came as a shock to me. I didn’t feel I had a voice in Malaysia if I couldn’t show my films to a Malaysian audience. That was [a lesson] I learnt as a director—to stand up for your voice and to respect the audience.”

Even with a slew of international awards under her belt, Eu’s fundamental values as a filmmaker remain unchanged: to be honest with herself and her message, to fight for her voice, and to share it with others.

It’s a fight that’s especially meaningful, considering how long it took for Eu to find her voice as a filmmaker during those early years after returning from the UK to her homeland in her late 20s.

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“When I moved back to Malaysia, I stopped directing and writing short films because I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough. I also think a big problem was that I didn’t know who I was, what my identity was as an artist, and what my voice was,” she says. “It took many years for me to figure things out and gain the confidence to direct my own short films.”

After several years working in the film industry together, Eu and Foo began to have a clearer picture of the stories they wanted to tell, stories that best represented them. “I’ve always believed in telling stories from your heart, stories that come from a place of honesty, and telling stories that are true to you. The day we allow stories to be free, and the day more of us listen to these stories is when we can all have less fear and hatred in our lives.”

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