OUR FINDINGS

Although Malaysia has a thriving film industry and expanding box office, Malaysia has not appeared as proactive on the international front as its tiny neighbour to the south, Singapore. But this looks set to change thanks to the Malaysian government’s new focus on the content industry, the upcoming launch of the Pinewood Iskandar Studios and a new-found confidence amongst local producers that could help raise the profile of this dynamic South-East Asian nation.

In addition, government investment company, Khazanah Holdings, is pumping $120m into Pinewood Iskandar Studios, a joint venture with the UK’s Pinewood Shepperton, due to open in 2013. The government hopes the studios will attract international production, grow inward investment, develop local expertise and position Malaysia as a production hub. Located in the Iskandar district in southern Malaysia, just a 45-minute drive from Singapore, the studios will be part of an ambitious new metropolis also featuring a media village and cyberport.

According to Finas director-general, Mohd Mahyidin Mustakim, the agency expects at least six feature films to be processed at the four-storey. state-of-the-art studio costing RM53 million called the Digital Mix Stage Studio that started operations last year.

The efforts taken by Finas aims to create a conducive environment for the development of the Malaysian film industry and to encourage the opening of more cinemas in the future. Presently, there are more than 90 cineplexes with 500 screens nationwide.

The Malaysian film industry has made important progress over the last few years. In 2009, there were 26 cinematic releases with a total collection of RM50 million. This compares favourably with the situation 10 years ago when only seven films were produced with ticket sales amounting to RM10 million.

At broadcast level, Finas collaborated with the National Geographic Channel, Discovery and History Channel to produce several documentaries on Malaysia that was broadcast worldwide through these channels.

Finas’ helping hand towards the film industry is part of the agency’s ongoing support for the industry. Before the National Film Policy (DFN) came into effect in 2005, Finas provided several basic facilities apart from the Compulsory Screening Scheme and the entertainment duty refund to help local filmmakers.

Malaysian filmmakers generally feel that their contribution to the economy is neither well understood nor appreciated by consumers, most of whom appear to pay scant respect for intellectual property. Producers are compelled to assign away their IP rights to private television stations that have the capacity to take their work to the market.

Hence, this progression is slowly taking its toll to make different in the film industry in our country. This progress is making young filmmakers to step up to the game and make movies and tv shows with help from the private sectors and the governments in Malaysian.

According to the statistics in four years’ time our local movies will be entertained in most of the oversees countries such as Singapore ,Australia , USA and Thailand.