Dain Said (second from left) and the cast of "Interchange" at Locarno.

6 Aug – Malaysian filmmaker Dain Said's upcoming film, "Interchange" held its world premiere yesterday at the 69th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.

Present during the grand open-air screening at the Piazza Grande, the director-producer was also joined by producer Nandita Solomon and cast members, Shaheizy Sam, Iedil Putra, Nicholas Saputra and Prisia Nasution for a Q&A session on stage before the movie was screened for an audience of roughly 8,000 people.

The film is up for two awards; the Prix du Public UBS (based on audience vote) and the Variety Piazza Grande Award which is decided by a panel of film critics at the end of the festival.

Cinema Online who is at Locarno covering the event, managed to talk to the cast of the film who shared their thoughts about their grand premiere which was met with great applause at the end of the film.

Dain Said the director and producer of "Interchange" gives a speech before the premiere.

Cinnamon The Lion trying to sneak in a photo of him and Nicholas Saputra.

"I feel so proud to be at Locarno. It is really huge and there are a lot of films from all over the world! Me standing here representing "Interchange" is something I won't ever forget!" said actor Shaheizy Sam.

Iedil Putra said, "It feels massive! For a scale of this magnitude for a Malaysian film. We brought the whole kampung here!"

Added Prisia Nasution, "It's really great. I hope the Europeans don't look at Asian movies as a stereotype after watching "Interchange"."

"It is an exciting experience... For the first time seeing our film on such a huge outdoor screen and with that many audiences. It's really great!", Nicholas Saputra agreed.

A press conference for "Interchange" was held earlier during the day before the night premiere.

The movie follows a man named Adam, a forensics photographer who is dragged by his best friend, Detective Man, into an investigation of a series of macabre ritual murders in the city. Adam soon befriends Iva, a woman who is on a mission to rescue the souls of the people in her tribe that have been trapped inside a glass plate negative. The tribe's spirit, played by Nicholas, takes on the form of a human in order to help Iva.

Produced by Malaysian independent film production company, Apparat, the film is co-produced by Indonesia's Cinesurya along with Sonneratia Capital, Seeing Eye Films and MDec (Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation).

GSC Movies will be distributing the film in Malaysia this 1 December. There is no release dates announced for Indonesia and Singapore yet.

The 69th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will run from 3 to 13 August 2016 and will see to the screening of 40 plus films from around the world.