FOUR FILMS SELECTED FOR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS – AN ACHIEVEMENT THAT IS UNHEARD OF…

A press statement by Mansor bin Puteh

If a Malaysian filmmaker or anybody in the world has got his film selected by an international film festival, it is a big deal, no doubt, since there are not that many films that are produced in the country with most that have been largely ignored by them because they were made for the local viewers; also since they have no artistic or philosophical values in them for any festival to look at them seriously!

And this year, a few Malaysians have had their one film selected by some international film festival, and they are taking it with a lot of excitement.

However, so far no one in Malaysia or anywhere in the world who have had a few of their films selected by different film festivals in the world at the same time.

I am fortunate, that four of my films – three documentaries and an old feature film – that have been given the rare honor of being selected by film festivals abroad.

And all this happened when everybody in the film industry is looking elsewhere while I was working on them to get to where they are today.

The three documentaries are ‘Aceh does not believe in tears’, ‘Rohingya Kissa’ and ‘A Crossed Amerika’ while the feature film is, ‘Seman: A Lost Hero’.

‘Aceh does not believe in tears’ is on the Aceh Tsunami and how the Acehnese are coping with the tragedy especially those who experienced it firsthand and those who have lost their close relatives; while, ‘Rohingya Kissa’ is on a small group of Rohingya refugees who were living in Malaysia for many years but who are now resettled in few cities in America and also Denmark. I met them when they were here and also when they are in those countries to record their experiences living in Malaysia and where they are now.

The documentary on the Aceh Tsunami caused me to go to Aceh eight times before I got enough materials to produce the documentary; and being someone who is of the same race and faith as the Acehnese, I was able to connect with them perfectly, although initially most of them thought I was Japanese, as did many in America.

‘A Crossed Amerika…’ is on an America not many Malaysians could see, if he had not lived in the country for a considerable period of time; it is the ‘hidden America’ that I recorded in my chance meetings with strangers when I took the many trips on the Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to New York City and back that took three days and three nights each way.

‘Seman: A Lost Hero’ is on a successful advertising executive who gets more than what he had bargained for when he tries to research for a book on his family.

This film was supposed to be my Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing thesis for Columbia University in New York City, which I did not want to submit to the faculty in order to graduate, because I was fearful of losing my contact with the university had I done so. Graduating from Columbia had become something awful to me to experience…something I dreaded to do and experience then.

And because of that I still maintained my personal contact with the Film Division and occasionally communicated with them, and see them when I am back on campus when I am in the city.

However, in 1988 when the Malaysian Film Festival or Pesta Filem Malaysia (PFM) was held my film which I reluctantly submitted was panned altogether, by the organizers and the members of the jury who ought to have known better what they were seeing.

But now with the recognition that it has received by a foreign film festival, it proves that the jury of the PFM did not know better. Most of them did not have formal training in film and they did not know why the film was made the way it did, to be ‘the most Malay film to be produced’ since all the earlier Malay films did not have enough Malayness in them to be classified as ‘Malay films’ in the philosophical and artistic sense. So how could I seek any artistic recognition from any of them for this film?

The next PFM will be held in October this year for the thirty-first time, and if this happens the organizers have a bit of explanation to do, and they have to produce better results with another line-up of the members of the jury, who have greater credibility.

Will they again appoint members of the jury who are like those they had chosen in the past, who know nothing about film and had not participated in any international film festival or forum and seminar?

Maybe someone should get a court order to stop Finas from organizing any film festival because they are not qualified to do so, as what they had shown the last thirty years. And who can that person be? He must be someone who has the guts and qualification to compel the courts to approve of his order.

The truth is the whole country does not have that many qualified and formally-trained film scholars and researchers and also historians and critics, for the organizers to choose from?

Finas never thought of them to find ways to engage the few that we have and to encourage the growth of film scholarship and criticism that can be used to further guide Finas to achieve greater artistic achievement for the country.

It is ironic that Finas was formed to develop the film industry that they have failed to do till now and they have also never bothered to establish the New Malaysian Cinema that requires the creation of some structures and institutions for it to happen. The Finas officials and members of the board simply do not know what these are and how to cause them to appear because they are busy misleading everybody and themselves.

Here are the posters of the films and the e-certificate from the World Film Conference-Singapore (WFCS) this film has received, with the finals of the festival that will be held early next year from amongst the films in various genres that have been chosen to be in the finals.