Sanct, now available in Malaysia as a free download, releases Episode 5 of its family film series and invites Malaysians to watch the story from the start

Sanct, a social app for family and close friends, released the fifth episode of its short film series on YouTube on Thursday (Oct 1), a day after the app became available in Malaysia as a free download on the Apple App Store. Malaysian readers were introduced to the series with Episode 1 in September. All five films are now online and tell one story in order: a daughter working in Singapore who promises to come home, has to delay, meets her family inside the app instead, books her ticket, and in the new film, “Welcome home.”, arrives at the door on her father’s birthday. Sanct supports Bahasa Melayu, English, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi and has no ads. Five thousand people are already on the platform.

KUALA LUMPUR: Sanct, a social app for family and close friends, released the fifth episode of its short film series on YouTube on Thursday (Oct 1), a day after the app became available in Malaysia.

The app went live on the Apple App Store in Malaysia and Indonesia on Wednesday (Sept 30) as a free download, two days after its launch in Singapore on Monday (Sept 28).

Malaysian readers were introduced to the series with Episode 1 in September. With the new episode, all five films are online, and they can be watched in order as one story.

Sanct supports Bahasa Melayu, English, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi. It is free to use and carries no advertisements. An Android version on Google Play is not ready yet.

The story so far, in five films

The series follows one family. The elder daughter, Keisha, works in Singapore. Her sister Clarissa and their parents live in Jakarta.

1. “She didn’t tell anyone”. After a hard day, Clarissa shares only a song with her closest friends, and they notice.

2. “Come back soon?” A question about dinner turns into a promise. Clarissa asks her sister, “Come back soon?” Keisha answers with one word, “Soon”.

3. “Tonight, in the Sanctum”. Keisha has to tell the family she cannot come home yet. She offers something she can keep: “Nothing’s sure yet, but we can still meet, right? Tonight, in the Sanctum?” The Sanctum is a small beach inside the app that opens at 6pm every day, and that evening all four of them go in. 

4. “I remember.” The family stays on the beach so long that they forget the time. In the family chat, Keisha says her ticket home is booked for Oct 12. 

5. “Welcome home.” The new film, released on Thursday (Oct 1).

The new film: she comes home early

“Welcome home.” takes place on Oct 1, which is the father’s birthday in the story and also the day the film was released. It runs for 1 minute 51 seconds and has no spoken lines. The company said every app screen in it is taken from the app as it is today.

In the morning Keisha writes in the family chat: “Happy birthday, Papa. See you on the 12th.” Her father replies: “I will wait for you.”

Keisha then takes an earlier flight and tells only her mother and her sister. Her message reads: “I took the earlier flight. Just landed. Don’t tell Papa.” After they have read it, she burns the message, and on her sister’s phone it changes to “This message was burned”.

On the way home she shares her live location with the two of them. Shortly after 6pm the doorbell rings, and her father opens the door.

“Many families here know this story. One child works in Kuala Lumpur or across the Causeway, and the parents wait at home for the next balik kampung. We told it in five short films, from a promise over dinner to the doorbell. Malaysians can now watch all five in order, and the app in the films is the one they can download,” Sanct founder Sion Abednego said in a statement.

Sion said the new film was set on Oct 1 on purpose, so that people who watch it on the day of its release are in the same day as the family.

“In the last film the app does very little. It keeps a secret for one afternoon, and it shows two people that she is nearly home. At the end she puts her phone face down on the table, because her family is in front of her. That is what we want Sanct to be used for,” he added.

What the films show

The company said these features appear in the films and are in the app today:

– Group chats for family and close friends, and events inside a chat with the date, the time and a button to add the event to the calendar.

– Burned messages. The sender presses on a message and chooses “Burn for me” or “Burn for everyone”. Messages do not disappear by themselves.

– Moments with an audience the user chooses: all friends, selected friends, or only the user. In the new film the sister shares a photo of four plates with selected friends and leaves her father out, so the surprise is kept.

– Live location, shared for 30 minutes, after which the sharing stops automatically.

– A camera with Dual and Carousel modes. Dual takes a picture with the back and front cameras in one moment, and Carousel puts five photos in one moment.

– The Sanctum, a small beach inside the app that opens at 6pm every day, where family and friends spend the evening together.

On user data, the company said Sanct does not sell user data to third parties. Sancty processes data only inside the user’s own account in order to respond, and the data is not used to train public AI models. The privacy policy is available at https://sanctsocial.app/privacy

Pricing and availability

Sanct is a free download. Its core features will stay free, while optional premium features will be introduced later. There are no ads in either.

The app is available for iPhone on the Apple App Store in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. The Google Play version for Android users is not ready yet.

A user’s first friends are added by meeting in person and scanning each other’s QR code in the app. Search and friend suggestions open after a user has five friends, and they reach friends of friends.

Sanct Social is registered in Singapore (Sanct Social Pte Ltd) and Indonesia (PT Sanct Social Indonesia) and was founded by Sion, who is from Indonesia. Five thousand people are already on the platform.

For more information and to download the app, visit https://sanct.social

This press release has also been published on VRITIMES