AsianPersuasion
Thursday, September 11, 2003
The Malaysian Video Awards
For the past three days I’ve been making an evening pilgrimage to the National Art Gallery to check out screenings of independent Malaysian and international short films. I have to commend the M.V.A. committee for their enthusiasm and dedication to the awards and our budding film industry.
They put together a great line-up of short films which featured a few young Malaysian filmmakers...there were definitely some notable entries..."Father" written and directed by our very own Shamyl Othman won first prize winner in the "Best Asean Short Film" category. I also enjoyed "Cane Toads" which was an incredible documentary about the over-abundant cane toad in Australia...absolutely brilliant! It was wonderfully put together and covered every angle possible, real quality doco. I was pretty disappointed however with the quality of work which came out of Malaysia....I know there are talented filmmakers out there...but they've all moved to Singapore lah...or Hong Kong...or Australia...or anywhere OTHER than Malaysia. Aiya...why ah? As soon as we get some good people in the industry they start looking for work permits in another country. How will the industry ever grow?
As I looked out into the partially filled auditorium (25 people), I couldn’t help but think to myself…for fuck sake Malaysia! No wonder it’s so difficult to find jobs in our almost non-existent documentary industry! Hang on a minute…does Malaysia even have a doco industry? After todays poorly attended “non-fiction” day at the National Art Gallery…hah!
Reluctantly, I’ve come to the conclusion that our Malaysian doco industry is like an elusive wild cat…you KNOW it’s there but you just can’t see it…AND is even under the threat of extinction! *sigh*
