KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 9 ― The Malaysia Film Festival (FFM) should just have films in all languages compete in the same category of local films, Barisan Nasional (BN) Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
He added that the removal of the current award segregation by language would not threaten Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.
He noted that while local films were previously defined as films with Bahasa Malaysia content, other locally-made films with dialogue in other languages used by Malaysians should also fall under the same category..
“But we must appreciate that these films: Ola Bola, Jagat, they are local films made by Malaysians and they are just as Malaysian as any other film.
“So in the interest of national unity and inclusiveness you shouldn't have different categories, you should just have one category ― local film. And you should celebrate diversity of Malaysia,” the Youth and Sports minister told reporters here after chairing a BN Youth exco meeting.
“I feel that this will not threaten Bahasa Malaysia's position as the national language, but we also have to appreciate that other languages are also spoken in Malaysia, there are other mother tongues in Malaysia,” he said.
Khairy noted that the existence and use of the many different mother tongues by Malaysians is part of Malaysia's beauty, adding that the arts is a way of manifesting the country's culture and the beauty of its diversity.
“So by no means I think of having just one category as undermining Bahasa Malaysia as the national language, but by having two categories you are segregating people. You are having different categories for what is essentially celebration of local culture,” he said.
“So I think Pemuda Barisan Nasional, we want to see inclusiveness and we stand for one Malaysia. And on this particular issue we feel it's better to just have one category — that is local film,” said Khairy who is also Umno Youth chief.
The nominations of two critically acclaimed movies — Chiu Keng Guan’s Ola Bola and Shanjhey Kumar Perumal’s Jagat — for Best Picture (non-Bahasa Malaysia) at the 28th FFM this year, instead of the main Best Picture category, had sparked outrage both among the public and within the film industry.
During a public engagement session last night, Malaysia Film Producers Association (PFM) president Datuk Yusof Haslam and its CEO Pansha Nalliah explained that when FFM started out decades ago, only Bahasa Malaysia films were featured.
According to the duo, the introduction of the non-Bahasa Malaysia category for Best Picture in 2011 and two new non-Bahasa Malaysia categories for Best Director and Best Screenplay this year was meant to give recognition to the Chinese and Tamil films that emerged in recent years.
Yusof said FFM organisers should not be misunderstood as being racist.
He asserted that the “national identity” cannot be changed and insisted that a national film must be in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, in line with government policy.
Yusof also said a distinction must be made between “national” films and “Malaysian” films, in response to a reference to former Information, Communication and Culture Minister Tan Sri Rais Yatim's 2011 recognition of Malaysian-produced movies in Mandarin, Cantonese and Tamil with Bahasa Malaysia subtitles as local movies eligible for entertainment tax rebates.
National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) director-general Datuk Kamil Othman told Malay Mail Online last week that Finas has made it a policy for locally-made films to emphasise at least 70 per cent Bahasa Malaysia usage in their scripts in line with the government’s push to promote the national language, but admitted it would be ideal if the Best Picture category in FFM was open to all films regardless of language.
He told reporters last night that a reconfiguration of the 28th FFM's award categories was still possible before the festival is held next month, but said Finas, PFM and the Communications and Multimedia Ministry would discuss such possible options to resolve the controversy over the splitting of the awards according to language.
