I COULD HAVE SAVED THE GOVERNMENT RM1.5 BILLION IT HAS GIVEN FINAS THE LAST 41 YEARS AND USED THE 'SOCIAL REALISM' CONCEPT TO CREATE THE 'KELUARGA MALAYSIA' AND THE NEW MALAYSIAN CINEMA…AND MAKE IT INTO A MONEY-MAKING ACTIVITY!

By Mansor bin Puteh

The film industry could not be created without the stress on audience education and re-education and film appreciation and re-appreciation. 

That the film industry is not about art, but it is an economic activity. Unfortunately, no economist that we have in the country has seen it that way that if it is created it can become a money-making venture to fill the government's kitty the more Malaysian go to the cinemas. The school of economics did not teach that to their students. 

It is a fallacy to say that a film industry could be created by force - i.e. with the formulation of an Act of Parliament that compelled the earlier political leaders to embark on an adventure that has not borne any fruit, despite the government having given the national film agency known as Finas.

It is estimated that RM1.5 billion, which amounted to around RM40 million a year most of which is to sustain the agency to pay waves and other entertainment activities so much so that the agency could be described as a 'travel agency' for their senior officials to participate in international film markets and festivals where they did not belong.

Hollywood, Bollywood and all the major film industries around the world were not created through the passing of legislation; they grew up on the ideas and financial support of a few with Hollywood having been created by four enterprising producers just like what happened to the Old Malayan film industry then based in Singapore, as described earlier.

Malaysia has failed to develop a film industry, much less a New Malaysian Cinema. It has also not made any attempt to fully educate their filmmakers and producers, to accept new ideas and ideals and to help them to expand their creative horizons - and mostly the viewers who needed to be trained to appreciate films to look at them from a different perspective and reasons.

We needed to get an Act of Parliament to try and give us any semblance of hope for such an industry to be created and developed. This, unfortunately, has not happened with the Malaysian filmmakers who are still excited to come up with fake copies of earlier films from other countries that are generally described as 'Fake Hollywood'!

But, alas! Those four enterprising entrepreneurs with no prior knowledge of world cinema and how to develop a film studio much less an industry, were able to do so and it is this enterprising foursome - Runme and Run Run Shaw and Loke Wan Tho and Ho Ah Loke, four Chinese businessmen, the first two of who came directly from Shanghai in China and the other two who were born in Kuala Lumpur who were able to do it with no hoopla and self-aggrandizement, had caused the creation of the Old Malayan Cinema, with a total of more than four hundred film to their names.

They did not get a single cent to establish their studios based then in Singapore nor were they supported by the government then, with the passing of any Act of Parliament. They did everything on their own, and without attracting attention to themselves!

They had also caused the creation of many interesting films and the development of talents that would otherwise been stuck with the 'bangsawan' and 'boria' shows most of them were adept to earlier.

Its been a long time when the idea for the creation of the establishment of a New Malaysian Film Industry was mooted; this happened with good intentions with the formulation of the Finas Act of 1981.

That was forty-one years ago!

And what have we gained from this particular Act? Not much or nothing at all. Because the Act did not guarantee that a film industry could emerge from it.

I doubt it if there is anyone in the film industry and the officials who are in the film agency had ever read the clauses in the Act to see what they say.

I have given it a passing read and found it wanting. I was at Columbia University in New York City when I heard about the Act that was being formulated by the government from none other than the then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammad who replied the letter I sent him using my address at the dormitory that also bore the address of the university.

I was shocked to receive his personal letter I received in March of 1979 that bore his signature, when he said that, without taking into account of my majoring in film which I could use to help develop the Finas Act that finally came about in 1981.

I could have done for the government additional research when I was at Columbia and easily be able to come up with a more advanced and appropriate Finas Act of 1981 than what it is now.

For one, this Act which is supposed to be the one that was created as a basis for the development of an industry does not seem to answer any of the major questions relating to how an industry could ever come out of it.

First, there is no philosophy that can be used as a basis for a film industry to be created and developed. How could any cinema be developed without a proper and powerful 'philosophical base' that is padded with social, cultural, economic and religious values? 

Second, there is no time span for the Act to be valid before it can be gotten rid off, because the industry should by then be able to sustain itself, so there is no need for any Act to guide it's growth and further expansion. 

Those at Finas and the ministry have not said when the New Malaysian Film Industry and New Malaysian Cinema could be developed and when these can become an income-generating activity for the country, so that Finas can assume different roles and not become part of a ministry to receive annual grants from the government?