Filem Malaysia

I managed to watch Fenomena Seni last Friday while waiting for the KTM Komuter to Rawang. The discussion was on what constitutes a Filem Malaysia where panelists UM Media Lecturer Dr. Abu Hasan Hasbullah, Film Director Shuhaimi Baba and Farid Kamil argued on their perception of the term while being hosted by Rosyam Nor.

The issue of Filem Malaysia has been around since a long time albeit many people have little knowledge about it. Currently, for a film to be recognised as a Filem Malaysia the main criteria is that the movie must be in the Malay language. Nevertheless, not many people agree with this fact since out of 24 million Malaysians, 52% are Malays, 30% are Chinese and 8% are Indians. In their opinion, the current method is wrong in portraying the real Malaysia.

Dr. Abu Hassan is an advocate of the current criteria in determining Filem Malaysia. He argued that in other countries like in Germany and Nepal, they have everything in their native language thus concluding that they are more in touch to their culture and identity. Since Bahasa Melayu is the official religion of Malaysia, Dr. Abu Hassan believe that all film worthy of the title Filem Malaysia should reflect that statement by being made in the language.

On the other side of the arguement, is Shuhaimi Baba. Contrary to Dr. Abu Hassan, Shuhaimi brought up the arguement of multiculturalism which Malaysia is heavily marketing throughout the world with its Truly Asia tagline. Why can't the film industry too reflect the multicultural aspect of Malaysia by awarding the title to any film made by Malaysian or is about Malaysia regardless of the language. She argued that it is suppressing the creativity of moviemakers by limiting their option to express their story.

I noticed that Rosyam Nor, albeit being a host, is more towards Shuhaimi Baba's arguement rather than Dr. Abu Hassan's. He mentioned that if Utusan Melayu can become Utusan Malaysia (actually both are different newspapers but I get the point) so why can't film industry bend their regulations to which Dr. Abu Hassan again replied that we have little respect for our identity and culture. He argued that that is the reason why this whole arguement started. If everyone is in touch with their culture and identity, the issue would never surface. Is it true?

Again we look back at Malaysia as a whole. The country is multicultural and every people have their own background and identity unlike less multicultured countries such as the ones Dr. Abu Hassan mentioned. Though Bahasa Melayu is our official language, we didn't manage to implement it the way the Indonesian did with their Bahasa Indonesia. I never hear any of my Indonesian Chinese friends speaking to eachother is any other language than Bahasa Indonesia an though Indonesian are regarded as serumpun with Malaysians, we mostly have our conversation in English. That does not make us less serumpun does it? In fact, by communicating in English makes us more serumpun since we are able to communicate better and easier. So what does this have anything to do with the arguement? It means that whatever language you use to converse does not make you less of a Malaysian. Who is more Malaysian, a Malay who speaks only Malay and hangout with only Malays or a Malay who speak both Malay and English but have friends from all sort of race and culture. The latter is the Muhibbah we should be striving for.

Back to films, I must say that what would you feel if you make a movie about Malaysia in English or Cantonese or maybe Tamil just to discover that your movie cannot be deemed as a Filem Malaysia just because you are not using the official language even though the storyline is definately Malaysian? Then again, what about if I shoot a movie in Kelantanese or the northern dialect. Would that be a Filem Malaysia?

The more I think about it the more it makes me agree that this topic is very-very difficult to settle. It is an issue that border many sensitive issues of our countries and I would really love to get reader's comment on the issue. What do you think?