117 Holdings
About
117 Holdings Sdn Bhd is the company through which Dina Zaman works — strategic research and advisory, long-form writing, and film and audio production under 117 Films.
The name is an address: the first house she lived in on coming home to Malaysia. The preoccupation has not changed since. How people remember. What a country agrees to forget. Who gets left out of the record.
Small by design. We take on few projects and stay with them a long time.
What 117 Does
Research and advisory Commissioned research on culture, religion, security and social change in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Field-led, ethically framed, and built for organisations that need to understand a room before they walk into it. Thirty years of reporting and eleven years of running a research institute sit behind it.
Screen and audio — 117 Films Development and production of documentary, animation and podcast work, made with Malaysian and international partners.
Books and long-form Dina Zaman's own writing. Malayland (Factionpress / Ethos Books, 2024). King of the Sea, optioned for screen. New work in progress.
Current Work
Desta: Born the daughter of an Ethiopian chieftain, Desta was stolen at ten and sold through the markets of Addis Ababa and Mecca, stripped of everything except her dignity. Her journey across Africa, Arabia and Asia ended in the royal courts of Malaysia, where she lived, was loved, and died as family. This animated documentary honours her final wish: to have her story told.
Animated documentary feature. 70 minutes. Bahasa Malaysia with English subtitles. Produced by The R&D Studio & 117 Films (a subsidiary of 117 Holdings). Directed by Irwan Junaidy. Dina Zaman, producer. Story and archive rights held by Dina Zaman. Status: in development.
In Development
Unnamed film projects.