Wednesday, March 4, 2009

CAN MALAYSIAN FILMS GO INTERNATIONAL?

Internationally, not many foreign language (non-English) films make it big outside their own borders. Chinese movies whilst they cater to a huge global market - the market is still the Chinese-speaking market and not the English speaking market who despises subtitled movies. In recent memory, only Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon managed to attract non-Chinese language markets - including the US.
Even when the Japanese film industry was at its peak, they too find it difficult to penetrate Western screens - their movies only available for viewing at selected cinemas that screen art house movies. Even Kurosawa's movies wasn't a global or commercial hit internationally. Their reach was achieved mostly through videos (firstly through Betamax and VHS, later Laserdiscs and now DVDs).
When a movie does attract Western interest like Ring-O, or Ju On, or My Sassy Girl, the Western producers would rather just buy the rights and remake the movie in English with commercial Hollywood artistes. Sometimes, the remakes are virtually scene-for-scene and shot-for-shot identical.
Indian movies? Again they are shown only through speciality cinemas. Slumdog Millionaire was not an Indian movie - it is an English movie.
So, these are movies from established markets and filmmakers. Kurosawa, Ang Lee, Tsai Ming Liang, Johnny To, Andrew Lau, Wong Kar Wai. Yet their movies cannot penetrate the global market like the way Hollywood movies do.
The thing is, today, FINAS launched the theme for our national film festival for 2009. And the theme is Malaysian Films Going International.
I'm not going to belittle our filmmakers. I believe there are filmmakers amongst us who are capable of making movies of a standard that we can be proud of and not ashamed of to screen at festivals around the world. But to think that Malaysian films can do better at the international market when films from Korea, Japan, China, Hongkong, India, Thailand, Indonesia are still struggling to make an impact on international commercial screens, I just don't know what to think lah.
We cannot even attract our own citizens to pay RM10 to support our local movies, what makes FINAS think we can get cinema owners and distributors overseas go gaga over our products?
Unless we pay Discovery Channel money to then agree to help produce documentaries and screen it on their channel, I doubt they would even think of distributing, buying or screening Malaysian produced documentaries. So maybe, our powers that be are thinking of financing Western producers and distributors to attract their attention to help produce Malaysian movies for the international market.
I don't know. What do you think? Can our movies do better than movies from other Asian countries who already have a great fan base from their own global foreign-language movie circuit.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

the main question is : can malaysian movies go international?
the answer is YES!

Anonymous said...

If we can make a good film sure we can go international....

can we make a good film?

Anonymous said...

malaysia boleh!

Maya said...

Maya optimis filem Malaysia mampu...tapi masih tunggu keajaiban berlaku! tak mustahil.

DaYN said...

Blogger... Have u got hold of tanty? thanks

Anonymous said...

To anonymous, Easy to say yes, but how? Going international does not mean winning festivals or getting video distribution deals - it means getting the movie screened internationally on a commercial basis. I doubt that will happen. Singapore has already done it - when will we be able to do it?
To Dayn...please check with Tanty's father Thorpe....he is in my facebook friends list.

Anonymous said...

Ya, bila tu En Anwardi Jamil?

Anonymous said...

I think you miss my point anonymous. I think we should for the time being forget about trying to get our movies be screened in USA or London (which I dont think any distributor would be interested in anyway) but to look closer, think of getting our movies screened at home, in Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, the Philippines and maybe the Chinese-speaking markets. That's a market that's big enough for us to target our creative energy to. No big deal if we cannot get our movies screened commercially in the US of A. By the way, why hide behind Anonymous?

Anonymous said...

boleh! pasti boleh tapi bukan filem arahan anwardi jamil la!

DaYN said...

Thanks blogger... I didn't noticed your commment in my blog... Anyways my name is Nor Izzuddin Shah, dayn83@yahoo.com... they can check out my facebook... ohhh and typo, adreanna... Thanks a mill for your help, and sorry for hijacking your blog ;)

Maya said...

Sdr Anwardi dan teman blogger,
Jujurnya, usahlah kita memikir utk memasarkan filem kita ke peringkat internasional kerana utk memecahkan tembok sinema asia juga belum lolos malah kita perlu cari jalan bagaimana meletakkan filem kita sebagai tuan rumah. Penonton kita mahukan filem kita yang bernilai dari aspek pemikiran, persoalan yg relevan dgn masakini, teknologi yang setanding tanpa mengenepikan aspek intelektual, tahap seni dan komersial dalam kata lain kita wajar bangunkan filem kita dengan acuan lokal kita tetapi punya kekuatan tersendiri mencapai standard antarabangsa. Maya optimis pengarah kita mampu lakukan dengan skrip yg bermutu tapi sebelum itu kuasai dulu penonton dipanggung sendiri.

Anonymous said...

Terima kasih Maya kerana komen anda yang bernas. Bukan macam anonymous yang komennya saya biarkan walaupun memang nampak sebagai satu attack personal. Tak kissahlah. Dahlah tak berani dan sembunyi belakang anonymous...kelakar lak tu. Orang orang macam ni, dengan komen yang tak beralas dan pemikiran cetek, yang menjadi halangan filem kita menjadi maju. Entah-entah anonymous ni memang seorang penggiat filem tempatan yang hanya menghasilkan filem murah-murahan yang buat duit tetapi lansung tidak ada kualiti.

DaYN said...

Blogger... may I comment?... It's all about demand and supply... Local quality movies that have emotions, strength, artistic values, characters, lingos, innuendos, cryptic, such as Seri Dewi Malam (which i think is soooo damn good and poetic) will never strike a chord with the locals... Local cinema goers instead pergi tgk slapstic movies such as Senario, Mami Jarum, or whatever movie yg ada clowns/jokers... I mean, these are the kind of movies yg boleh dapat kutipan yg banyak, but nonetheless, will never have the potential to go international... How?... Can we really change the mentality of the locals?...

Ehsan Ismail said...

Assalamualaikum Encik Anwardi,

Saya peminat filem Melayu atau Malaysia secara umumnya baik klasik maupun moden. Saya tetap bangga.

Kita tidak kurang dengan pengarah filem-filem tempatan yang hebat-hebat samada yang masih hidup maupun yang telah tiada.

Cuma kita nak cari apa "loop holes" yang ada dalam industri filem negara kita?

Loop-holes antaranya :

1. Dilema dalam mendefinisikan antara nilai cerita dan nilai komersial. Apa pendapat penerbit, apa pendapat golongan akademik perfileman dan apa pendapat penonton biasa? Di mana titik pertemuan? At the end of the day penonton yang menentukan box-office.

2. Apakah filem Malaysia kita mampu untuk menarik minat lebih dari 50% penduduk Malaysia?

3. Bahasa Malaysia bahasa nasional kita. Semua orang fasih bahasa Malaysia. Tapi kenapa filem bahasa melayu masih belum mampu menarik ramai penonton bukan melayu walaupun ada pelakon bukan melayu di ketengahkan? Lain pula industri muzik. Alleycats bukan melayu, tapi mampu menarik perhatian seluruh masyarakat malaysia bertahun-tahun lamanya.

4. Bagi saya going international, pasaran Indonesia, Singapore dan Brunei cukup bagus. Sedangkan penyanyi AF sudah mampu menarik peminat dari Singapore dan Brunei. Mungkin secara strategiknya kalau Penerbit Filem Malaysia boleh ambik pelakon Indonesia, Singapore dan mungkin pelakon dari Brunei secara serius dan marketing bagus, tidak mustahil semua orang serantau boleh kongsi minat.

5. Saya terfikir ..... kalau bahasa melayu tidak mampu di pasaran bukan melayu peringkat internasional, kenapa filem hindustan yang kita tak reti bahasa hindi mampu menarik penonton melayu dan india bertahun-tahun lamanya?

Mungkin kita suka tengok yang cantik-cantik dan handsome-handsome ..... tapi itu bukan ukuran filem itu berjaya atau bermutu. Filem Hollywood yang berjaya box office, pelakon bukan semuanya handsome, contoh Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwanarger, Charles Bronson dll. Yang pelakon wanita (mem) pun taklah cantik sangat, tapi lakonan bermutu.

Waduuuhhh...banyak bangat saya bicara .... lu pikirlah sendiri.

ticktech said...

Untuk tatapan para pengunjung blog saudara Anwardi Jamil. Minta maaflah kalau saya menyelit atau dalam bahasa dasar kita menyampuk, kerana saya tidak pernah menulis blog ataupun memberi pandangan atau komentar dalam mana-mana blog. Tetapi saya lebih gemar membaca dan menghayati cara dan gaya penulis mahupun pembacanya.
Kebiasaan ini saya lencongi saat ini dengan izin saudara-saudari supaya dapat saya meluahkan isi fikiran dan perasaan saya mengenai subjek yang dekat di hati kecil saya ini, iaitu filem Malaysia atau sering disebut filem Melayu.
Saya anak Malaysia, judul lagu yang telah lama hilang dari siaran radio kita. Sudah lupa agaknya lirik lagu tersebut akan tetapi tanpa lirik lagu tersebut pun sudah memadai dengan judulnya yang saya rasa cukup kuat dapat kita laungkan di mana-mana.
Ya, sama seperti judul lagu itu begitu juga cogankata dalam hati saya. SAYA ANAK MALAYSIA.
Kalau nak lebih tepat lagi saya anak Malaysia keturunan Cina.
Latar belakang mahupun asal-usul nenek moyang saya tidak perlu dibawa bicara dalam topik ini.
Kerana perkara yang kita asyik perbahaskan di sini adalah mengenai filem Malaysia.
Saya bangga dengan kewarganegaraan saya tetapi perasaan itu tidak dapat saya juruskan kepada industri perfileman kita di Malaysia. Sedikit sebanyak adalah, apabila ada filem yang dapat menarik perhatian saya sebagai penonton. Tak lupa juga, perasaan bangga tersebut akan timbul apabila ada usul dan hujah yang bernas juga matang.
Kita patut berani menghadapai dan akui posisi kita dalam dunia perfileman ini. Bukan sekadar di pasaran tempatan tetapi di persada antarabangsa. Mengaku sajalah, kelemahan yang kita ada baik dari segi penceriataan mahupun teknik pembikinan dan segala tahap dan proses dalam pembikinan sesebuah filem. Bukan bermakna kita kalah terus, kita masih ada penggiat yang mempunyai ilmu perfileman yang bagus, tetapi mereka ini cuma tergulung dalam segelintir dari keseluruhan kelompok pembikin filem Malaysia yang kebanyakkannya tidak berani mengakui apa yang sebenarnya ataupun situasi yang sebenarnya dihapadapi oleh industri filem Malaysia sekarang ini.
Saya tak akan dan tak sudi menyebut nama karyawan mahupun hasil mereka dalam konteks perbincangan ini. Memadai untuk saya meluahkan pendapat saya secara umum supaya tidak dilontar kata-kata ataupun pertuturan yang tidak manis di laman blog saudara Anwardi Jamil ini. Kalau saya tidak malas dan bersedia untuk memulakan blog saya sendiri, dengan laman saya sendiri, sudi kiranya sesiapa yang ingin melontar apa sahaja jika apa yang saya perkatakan bercanggah dengan pendapat saudara saudari sekalian.
Akhir kata dari saya yang tidak seberapa, kepada yang ingin berinteraksi di ruang siber, tunjukkanlah diri anda yang sebenarnya, katakanlah isi hati yang sebenar-benarnya. Hanya dengan cara sebegini, barulah kita dapat mengenalpasti isu yang sebenarnya yang menghambatkan pembangunan industri filem Malaysia kita dan juga yang menghambatkan perkembangan Minda Kita.

muteaudio said...

Maybe its easier said than done. But I think we need to be honest to our audience. Why we want to produce a film? If profit is our aim, then our film can't go far bcoz the film was made with specific demographics in mind hence limiting its penetration capability.

Its hard to make a film local with worlwide release as its playground. Each country has their own 'folly' tht we need to consider. I hope someone will one day concoct 'the perfect recipe' tht combines 'quantity' N 'quality'. A story tht can rake in the money N awards. This recipe I believe can help to push M'sian film far. If we can have at least one film with 'the prefect recipe' it'll be good enough.

BTW, I don't expect all or some of our films to go far abroad. 1 film is good enough for a start. The relevant authority should be on the look out for such story and give undivided and apolitical support for its completion into a film. And wholeheartedly market it worldwide.

The script is out there for them to find! Yes, M'sian films can go abroad. The question is when, which film, whose film and how much help given to tap the film's potential. We tend to rubbish some ideas. And it might be some unpolished gem that we threw away.

Loong said...

Malaysian Films can go international!
But, it takes times and effort to come up with the right formulation in terms of script, storyline, actors and actresses and producers!
Resources both human and capital!
It is easily said then done!
Put our minds and heart together and work towards this target with the support of all Malaysian audience with the right expertise such as Encik Anwardi. There is still hope!

Anonymous said...

korang buat filem pun merapu nama filem je hebat2 tapi plot cerita adei mengalahkan sugguh dari tajuk cerita..terlalu penuh dengan bab cinta oi kalau buat cerita pandai2 la buat seimbang kalau nama aksi buat la aksi usah la memandai letak bab romantik banyak2 ingat kami ni layan sangat romantik ke? buat la perubahan sikit baru la semangat nak tengok.