FINAS AND RTM MUST MERGE…AS DO MALAYSIAN THEATER AND LITERARY ENDEAVORS

…AND THE RM1.5 BILLION ALOCATION ON FINAS THAT HAS GONE TO WASTE AND HOW FILM SCHOLARS HAVE BEEN SIDELINED BY THEM.

By Mansor bin Puteh.

Malaysians have not learnt from the vast experiences of those who are involved in the film industry, television, theater and literary endeavors especially novel writing in the west where their tradition had happened long ago that left many clues and ideas that we could borrow and perfect to benefit from.

Malaysian authorities had the tendency to look at any one particular endeavor in its totality and not linked with each other, even when they can see very clearly how most of those who are involved in any one branch of the arts are also in the other with a few who are also involved in all of them, not by virtue but by convenience as it does not pay to be stuck in any one, to start with.

That American Broadway is not under their ministry of culture; or Hollywood which is also not under their ministry of information or multimedia, if they have such a ministry with a secretary is not a state secret.

In fact, America which only has fifteen ministries in the federal government, and no ministry of youth and sports, is something that all Malaysians have not come to understand fully as to how and why this could happen in a country whose sports activities is a vast industry.

So in Malaysia, every branch of the arts must be separated for convenience so hopefully it could thrive on its own. Unfortunately, this has failed to happen.

Even after so many years and with so much money that had been channeled to those activities and agencies such as Finas, the respective industries have failed to develop and they continue to be under the auspicious of the respective ministries and ministers who call the shots.

Finas which was formed in 1981 has been allocated an annual fund which is huge and in addition to more funding for project development, etc, which one can quite easily guess to be more than RM1.5 billion.

And despite that what can Finas be proud of? That there are now so few films that have managed to collect RM40 million at the local box office?

And Finas is still getting funding from the government each year.

With the investment of so much, then surely all Malaysians should expect some miracle to happen to the film industry, so that later the New Malaysian Cinema could emerge from it.

Unfortunately, this cannot happen as we have sidelined film scholars and film critics and the better qualified people, the few that we have who had the good opportunity to study film at prestigious universities in America who can study and say for sure if the New Malaysian Cinema has been created. It has not.

Malaysian Cinema today is no more than Fake Hollywood and all the top box office breakers are Fake Hollywood films, copied from earlier film from Hollywood and sometimes from Hong Kong and South Korea.

Finas and the film industry, if there is one that can be described as such, has caused so few to benefit from it, without it ever benefiting Finas and the film industry or the quest to develop the New Malaysian Cinema.

This is unfortunate.

If we look at the total funds that the government had allocated to Finas since its formation in 1981 so it is going to be thirty-years come June of this year, to a tune of say, RM1.5 billion, then surely, we must be horrified to hear of such a huge amount that could have been put to better use for the building of highways or high-rise buildings and other physical structures that everybody can see, which can in turn bring in revenue to the country.

Or, if the government had allocated this huge amount right from the beginning when they wanted to establish Finas in June, 1981, then surely, the Malaysian government could even purchase a small studio in Hollywood or build one there that could be used as a launching pad for top or leading Malaysian filmmakers to produce films for the American and world market and benefit a lot from it so all Malaysian films can have a base in Hollywood to launch the creation of the New Malaysian Cinema.

It is not difficult for the government to draft the Finas Act of 1981 or Akta 244 as it is also called, if it is not useful to be used as any guide to trust the development of the film industry as what we can see now.

It will be bad if this act is not redrafted by highly qualified film scholars so that the New Finas Act can be used to achieve a better goal so that in time the film industry could be a major income-generating activity in the country and not a parasite of any ministry.

And it was not by chance that Hollywood was established by four film producers and not by the state of California or American government, and how Broadway too was established by private individuals, too.

And American television that emerged from the activities of Hollywood and Broadway, too, is not under their ministry of information, because they are independent and income-providing activities of the country.

In fact, the entertainment industry of America can be said to be the sixth largest industry of that country.

So, how come we are not able to turn our own entertainment industry with the film industry and theater forming the major part of it, to be one of the leading industries in the country that provides huge revenue and employment to the country?

The truth is that Finas cannot be developed by unqualified people as does the theater and television; they also cannot be developed and expanded on their own and must be merged to become an entity.

In this regard I wish to highlight a fact that is not known generally by all Malaysians which is the fact that there were only three Chinese businessmen from Shanghai who I expect to be not conversant in Bahasa Melayu who came to Singapore to establish the Shaw Brothers’ Malay Film Production at 8 Jalan Ampas and Cathay-Keris Film Studios in Jalan Buloh Perindu, to create what film scholars describe as the Old Malayan Cinema, using their own money and resources.

And compare Finas and the financial backing of the Malaysian government which was formed under the act of parliament, but which has not yet managed to develop the film industry, never mind, the New Malaysian Cinema, that can never happen – even after RM1.5 billion on it has been spent…

This is what you get from sidelining film experts and film scholars and pander to the whims and fancies of the few cunning people who could not do anything else but by producing films using ideas that are copied from Hollywood films or those from Hong Kong and South Korea and sometimes, India, too.