Writer and Director: Yihwen Chen
As much about Malaysia as it is about the queer Punk Rock band Shh…Diam! (“Shut Up” in Malay), Yihwen Chen’s documentary spanning the years between 2018 and 2022 is an absorbing if sobering watch. Finding a charming subject in lead singer Faris, Queer as Punk demonstrates how difficult it is to be a trans man in a country which still discriminates against queer individuals.
These homophobic and transphobic laws are, in a big part, due to colonial times and British Rule. However, queer people are also subject to another legal system entirely: that of Sharia Law. In 2018, two lesbians were punished by the Sharia court, each receiving six strokes of a cane, an ordeal that lasted for 18 minutes. Faris, with his band, later participates in a moving theatrical show as an act of memory and as an act of resistance.
With their Californian 60s-inspired Punk Rock sounds, the bandmates of Shh…Diam travel across Malaysia playing to small crowds. The lyrics are funny and genderqueer: one song, The Lonely Lesbian, is a response to a Malaysian news outlet’s article, helping its readers spot queer individuals within Malaysian society, similar to the kind of journalism we had in Britain during the 1950s. This song goes down a storm when they play it on tour in the UK.
At the start of this 90-minute film, queer people are hopeful that the 2018 election will bring an end to the right-wing government, which has been in power for over 60 years. However, the new Government of 2018 doesn’t bring many changes to the lives of people like Faris, and when Covid hits, the political situation becomes more fraught as Malaysians take to the streets. After the epidemic, many of Faris’s queer friends leave the country to seek asylum in another. Kuala Lumpur seems a very lonely place for Faris, a world of Zoom calls and empty streets.
Despite the lively music, Chen’s documentary is slow and considered. Often not much happens, but it allows the viewer a chance to know Faris and appreciate his own journey through the political turmoil. He’s open about his transition and his three-weekly testosterone shots. His girlfriend Jade is often by his side, though we discover little about her and how she found her way to Malaysia.
Formed in 2009, Shh…Diam! still make music today. Punk has always been a means to challenge authoritarian systems, and so it seems this music will always be needed. With persecutions against trans people rising across the world, Punk may be more important than ever.
Queer East runs from 1 May to 6 June 2026.
