YASMIN Ahmad – local filmmaker extraordinaire who touched many hearts and minds with her distinctly down-to-earth Malaysian productions – passed away on July 25, after suffering a stroke and brain haemorrhage. She was 51.

Famed for her groundbreaking Petronas TV commercials even before she made her first film, Yasmin often professed to a humble beginning in her moviemaking career, by volunteering to make a commercial for free, for a client who lacked the funds.

Yasmin’s commercials – mostly celebrating the country’s independence or touching on issues close to the heart of Malaysians – successfully brought her out of obscurity and into the limelight. Soon after, came a string of movies – always bearing messages of racial harmony and familial ties – which pushed the envelope, challenged the norm and attempted to bring about change.

She quickly became a name closely linked to the rise of Malaysia’s independent filmmakers. A friend to many young directors, she struggled with them to bring a whole new edge to Malaysian films.

Despite receving numerous accolades, Yasmin always underplayed her role as a filmmaker. She was, after all, she would say only a part-time filmmaker, but a full-time executive creative director with an advertising firm. For Yasmin, making movies was almost a hobby.

Born in Bukit Treh, Muar, Johor on July 1, 1958, Yasmin graduated from Newcastle University, Britain in psychology, and began her career as copywriter with Ogilvy and Mather before joining Leo Burnett as joint creative director in 1993.

In 2003, she made her first feature film, Rabun, a TV movie produced for TV3. But it was 2004’s Sepet, her first cinematic release, that won her international accolades. Her first award for Sepet was the Grand Prix at the Creteil International Women’s Film Festival in France. Later that year, the film also picked up the Best Asian Film award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Sepet presented a story that challenged stereotypes and perceptions of what a Malaysian mainstream film could be. At the heart of it was a sweet relationship between a boy and a girl, kept apart because they are of different races.

Since then, she made another four feature films (Gubra, Mukhsin, Muallaf and Talentime), all of which had been screened at international festivals.

Most of them are stories that revolve around her own family. These were not your average Malaysian movies. Sepet opened with a Chinese boy reading a Rabindranath Tagore poem, then dancing to a classic Malay song. Gubra opened with a bilal’s wife preparing breakfast for her husband to the strains of a Hindi song. People took notice.

Her biggest win came in 2007, when Mukhsin (2006), her ode to childhood love, garnered two awards – the Grand Prix from the Kinderfilmfest International Jury and a Generation K-Plus Crystal Bear Special Mention – at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival, one of the top three festivals in the world.

Her latest film, Talentime, has been selected for this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, from Oct 17 to 25.

Yasmin had just embarked on two international projects, a Japanese-produced film called Wasurenagusa (Forget Me Not) which features a Malaysian-Japanese cast, and Go Thaddeus!, a Singaporean production about the short but inspiring life of the late Singaporean triathlete Thaddeus Cheong.

She is survived by husband Abdullah Tan Yew Leong.