Abang Adik has been sweeping up numerous award nominations globally, director Jin Ong hopes his debut film can create a lasting impact in his country of Malaysia. Speaking at the Asian Film Awards, Ong said, “I really hope we can inspire the next generation of Malaysian filmmakers, and to show that even small Malaysia films can find a global audience.”

Because of the film’s plot focusing on undocumented immigrant brothers in Malaysia, Ong admits there were concerns the film wouldn’t be palatable to an international audience, but instead Abang Adik received awards from Italy’s Far East Film Festival and Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards (often referred to as Chinese-language cinema’s Oscars).

Though the film’s stars Wu Kang-Ren and Jack Tan did not win their respective nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, Ong still looks to the film’s success as having the potential to impact the Malaysian film industry: “We didn’t expect the success, honestly…But no matter whether we screened [the film] in Switzerland, Italy, even New York, the audience reacted the same. They’re crying, they’re hugging me afterwards and saying it’s sad but beautiful. I think emotions link us all, and people everywhere could feel the love between the brothers. So this gives us all hope that our small films can reach people because in life people everywhere share the same emotions.”

Before writing and directing Abang Adik, Ong was a producer and talent manager. The success of the film has led to some of Malaysia’s major television networks and studios to have discussions with him. Ong said, “The government is now using my film as an example of what can be done, so this gives hope for us all…Personally, I feel like I have given something back to my country and I have raised awareness of issues, such as these undocumented immigrants, that we should all be talking about.”