When Datuk Kamil Othman was offered the role of Chairman of Finas (National Film Development Corporation Malaysia) in early 2023, he jumped at it as he felt that his stint as CEO from 2014 to 2016 had not achieved the results he wished for.
So, when he started as chairman on March 1, 2023, he knew he had his work cut out for him.
When he started last year, the idea was to improve what he had done in his earlier stint. He decided to focus on mainly administrative issues like grant application, training, and marketing.
When these began to show signs of improvement after getting feedback from filmmakers, the focus then moved to independent filmmakers and to update templates being used to modernise filmmaking structures.
Minister of Communications, Fahmi Fadzil, used the term “Recalibrate Finas” and emphasised the need to encourage quality films for export.
To achieve this goal, Kamil began by improving the mechanism of funding, marketing and promotions, which is key in the industry globally and building the capacity of both filmmakers and productions.
Fimi (Film in Malaysia Initiative) requires 30% local participation and now Finas wants to improve them so that the production crew can now be trained to attract foreign productions here.
In 2016, the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) came to train more than 50 local crew and this program will now be reactivated.
Apart from this also HKSC (Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers) is planning to share their expertise and seek local partners for their upcoming projects.
Kamil and his team recently organised an event for an Academy Award-winning documentarian and filmmaker of “Elephant Whisperers”, Kartiki Gonsalves to give a Masterclass to local documentary filmmakers.
It is quite evident to many that capacity building for the film industry needs to be focussed on to raise the level of filmmaking and ensure moviemaking becomes a lucrative industry.
Where we once led the region, we now see the likes of Vietnam, and Cambodia becoming a strong competitor to us. The likes of Thailand, the Philippines, and Korea have left us far behind them in the past 20 years.
Whilst Malaysia has many talented directors and producers who continue to create great ideas, they need to be both discovered and nurtured locally as these same filmmakers seem to be more appreciated abroad and receive both support and funding from foreign entities.
Kamil did note that many of our local-born directors are funded abroad and hence when the movies are produced, Malaysia loses out in recognition of these talents.
For these talents, support is a key element i.e. script preparation, early stages of ideation, pitching at festivals and marketing these projects to get funding.
Great examples of these are directors like Edmund Yeo, Adrian Teh, and Amanda Nell Eu whose movies have won multiple awards globally.
Amanda’s movie “Tiger Stripes” was even a candidate at the recent Academy Awards which was co-funded by FINAS.
This is a distinct difference from other filmmakers who purely require funding.
Co- production is also very important as FINAS can partner with other nations and industries to help create partnerships for local movies.
We can note this when the opening credits of movies have several partners from Australia, UK, and France on a single movie.
In the past, it was purely a one-size-fits-all-all formula, but now new policies have been put in place, and infrastructure needs to be created to support the industry so that it can grow. Additionally, funding support rather than just money is required.
Filmmakers need assistance in completing films, ideations, marketing, co-production, and capacity building as the trillion-dollar industry seems to be constantly evolving. Standing still is tantamount to failure.
Kamil added that the film industry needs to evolve from the making, distribution and even promotions has vastly changed and together the local industry needs to have a new mindset to achieve success.
A great example of this is animation, as technology is constantly changing and even though the viewers have matured, the age group has become younger and making these movies have become more technically complex.
A key element of this will be the funding mechanism and hopefully involving banks and other corporate entities more open to being a part of the industry. This has been already done in many competing countries and now with his new board installed last August and CEO appointed last November, Kamil has a team to move forward and make the required improvements to filmmaking in Malaysia. - The Vibes, March 31, 2024
