What BAGFest 2026 Taught Us About Animation in Sarawak
What should an animation studio keep doing for itself as its tools become more capable? That question stayed with us after the Borneo Animation & Games Festival 2026 in Kuching. For Motion Foundry, the answer starts with understanding the character, not choosing the software.
BAGFest ran from 19 to 23 August across Pullman Hotel Kuching and The Hills Kuching, with its industry conference held from 19 to 21 August. Motion Foundry joined a panel discussion, pitched an animation project and attended workshops.
The festival's focus on local talent and industry connections gave us a useful setting to consider three things: how more people can enter animation, what makes a local story connect, and where AI can help without taking over creative judgement.
CL's panel: making room for more local creators
Our animation director, Siew Chung Lee, known to us as CL, joined the panel on the rise of East Malaysian content. He spoke from his experience of making animation in Sarawak and the possibilities for more people to become part of that work.
The official programme lists Juhaidah Joemin of Visional Pop and Ryan Lee of Sarawak Media Group alongside CL, with Nadia Mahmud of Multimedia University moderating.
Our view is that encouragement needs a practical next step. Someone who enjoys drawing may not yet understand the difference between designing a character, planning a sequence through storyboards and animating its performance. Showing how those roles connect makes the industry easier to approach than simply telling people it has potential.
Kumang: a local story with a human conflict
Our own reference point is Kumang and the Ungrateful Python, an animated short made in Kuching. It received Best Story at the 27th DigiCon6 ASIA Malaysia Circuit in 2025, a recognition also announced by TVS Entertainment.
The film draws on an Iban tale. Kumang rescues a young python, Sawa, and cares for it. As Sawa grows, its demands become a threat to the person who helped it.
Looking back at that story gives us something more useful than an award to mention. Its conflict is about kindness, trust and the point at which care becomes dangerous. An audience does not have to know the legend beforehand to understand why that relationship matters.
That is the distinction we want to carry into future work: make the emotional stakes understandable without treating the story's cultural roots as decoration. The recognition matters to us, but it is not proof that any particular tool or production method caused the film's success.
AI in animation: keeping creative decisions human
BAGFest made AI's growing place in the animation conversation feel more tangible. The concern it raised for us was not whether a machine could produce an appealing image. It was whether we might accept that image before asking enough questions about the character.
Consider a future design exercise based on Kumang's story. How might someone express fear of a creature they have cared for, without losing that sense of care? A guarded posture or moment of hesitation could suggest different answers. The point is to explore intention before committing to an appearance.
Design and performance need separate attention. A character's silhouette, clothing and proportions establish a visual identity. A glance, gesture or pause changes how we read their feelings. We want the team to be able to explain and revise both, rather than approve an image simply because it looks finished.
We see room for AI-assisted exploration and selected repetitive tasks, where the tool and project permissions make that appropriate. But generating more options should widen the team's thinking, not bring it to an early stop. The brief, cultural judgement, revisions and final approval should stay with people accountable for the story.
Before adopting an AI-assisted approach, we would test one small, non-confidential character brief against our usual process. Three checks would guide that trial:
Can we keep the same character? Compare front, side and three-quarter views. Check the same facial features, proportions and clothing details against an agreed reference.
Can we direct a specific emotion? Request a change from confidence to uncertainty while preserving the character's identity. Judge whether the result communicates the intended feeling, not merely a more attractive face.
Does it help the whole task? Include selection, corrections and consistency fixes when comparing time. A fast first image is not the same as a production-ready result.
These are checks we propose for future work, not results we have already measured. Our position is to use AI to strengthen production, not hand over the entire production to it. Better tools should give us more room to explore and refine, while the story remains ours to direct.
Learning from Malaysian studios closer to home
The published programme offered other Malaysian reference points. Usamah Zaid Yasin of WAU Animation, the studio behind Ejen Ali, was listed to address human creativity amid AI. That topic connects directly with our question about who sets a project's creative direction.
Datuk Haji Burhanuddin bin Md Radzi of Les' Copaque was listed to discuss a sustainable creative business. Its Upin & Ipin combines everyday family stories with distribution beyond Malaysia. To us, it is a reason to explore wider audiences without assuming that local detail must disappear.
Hairul Sofian of Warnakala Studios was listed to discuss studio growth. Its Didi & Friends has a clear preschool audience and educational format. The principle we can borrow is audience clarity, not the assumption that a folklore short should follow a children's series model.
These examples suggest questions, not a shared recipe for success. A studio still needs to judge what fits its own stories, audience and production capacity.
What international experience can offer a local studio
The international programme listed Lyon Liew of Pixar on locally rooted stories, Rob Doherty of Hasbro on storytelling across formats, and Sidney Kombo, listed with Weta FX and Third Pole Limited, on character performance.
For a smaller team, these subjects lead to manageable questions: can a new audience follow the character's motivation, does another format genuinely suit the story, and does a movement communicate the intended emotion? Learning from a larger studio need not mean trying to reproduce its scale.
A pitch has to make sense outside the studio
We also presented one of our animation projects in an elevator pitch session alongside other Malaysian production companies.
Using Kumang as a separate example, a clear introduction begins with its relationship and conflict: a woman cares for a vulnerable creature whose growing demands threaten her. It tells a new listener what is at stake before asking them to understand the wider world.
Before a future pitch, we would ask someone outside the project to retell its central conflict in their own words. A different understanding would show us what needs clarification. That is a more useful reason to revise a pitch than simply making it longer.
Putting the work in front of people
At our booth, we also featured The White Rajah of Sarawak. The display put a specific project alongside the wider conversations about animation in Sarawak.
That connection matters to us. Discussion about a growing industry becomes easier to relate to when people can see what a local team is actually making. For someone exploring animation, a project can offer a more concrete starting point than a broad statement about future potential.
What we want to take back into production
Alongside the discussions and pitching, we attended workshops, including an Unreal Engine session.
Real-time production and generative AI are different subjects. Our interest in the workshop was another opportunity to examine a workflow. Before changing a process, we would want to try a small scene and assess how easily the team could revise it, rather than judge the method only by its demonstration.
A small milestone with work still ahead
We see BAGFest as a small milestone for animation in Sarawak, with its value resting partly on what follows. Our next steps should be specific: explain a project's conflict more clearly, test a workflow before adopting it, and make the work behind animation more visible to people starting out.
Kumang gives us a story to return to when those decisions become complicated: what does this choice help the audience understand or feel? That is the question we want to keep asking, whatever tools come next.
BAGFest is an initiative of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), in partnership with the Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and the Sarawak Government. We appreciate the space created for these conversations.
Explore our animation and motion graphics work, or get in touch with Motion Foundry to talk about a project or collaboration.
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