Film Producers Association says awards segregation needed to uphold national language

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 — The Malaysian Film Producers Association (PFM) defended today the segregation of award categories in the Malaysia Film Festival based on language, saying it was to uphold Bahasa Malaysia in local films.

PFM also said it and the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) were working together to look for a practical mechanism for the future of the country’s film industry by taking into account the status of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language, as well as other languages in Malaysia.

“For the sake of upholding the national language in local films currently and in the future, the Best Picture category in the 28th Malaysia Film Festival will have the requirement of 70 per cent usage of Bahasa Malaysia in the dialogue.

“Other languages will be taken into account in the Best Picture (Non-Bahasa Malaysia) category in the 28th Malaysia Film Festival. As a result, those categories will also affect the Best Director and Best Screenplay categories,” said PFM in a statement.

The disqualification of Chiu Keng Guan’s Ola Bola and Shanjhey Kumar Perumal’s Jagat from the “Best Picture” category in the 28th Malaysia Film Festival this year, Malaysia’s equivalent to the Academy Awards, and their placement in the non-Bahasa Malaysia category instead had sparked public outrage.

Ola Bola was inspired by the multiracial Malaysian football team that qualified for the 1980 Moscow Olympics and was reportedly the fifth highest-grossing local movie in history, raking in RM15.85 million according to a New Straits Times April report.

Jagat is the debut work of Shanjhey depicting the harsh socio-economic conditions of the ethnic Indians in Malaysia. It garnered critical reviews and was also a box-office hit for 10 weeks in certain cinemas, grossing RM220,000.

Local arts news website Daily Seni reported yesterday that the Malaysia Film Festival and PFM led by SKOP Production chief Datuk Yusof Haslam had made the decision due to the use of mixed languages in both films.

Popular comedian and actor Afdlin Shauki has said he will boycott the Malaysia Film Festival while prominent business figures Datuk Seri Nazir Razak and Tan Sri Tony Fernandes have similarly criticised the language segregation in the awards ceremony.