An opposition parliamentarian today chided Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for trying to sneak some limelight from a Malaysian director and actress who won top prizes at the 50th Golden Horse Award ceremony in Taiwan.

Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching said that although Tsai Ming Liang and Yeo Yann Yan made Malaysia proud by clinching the Best Director and Best Supporting Actress awards in the prestigious Chinese movie awards ceremony last Saturday, it was no thanks to Najib nor the National Film Development Corporation (Finas).

Tsai won his award for the film ‘Stray Dogs', while Yeo took her award for her role in a Singapore film, ‘Ilo Ilo'.

gerakan egm 261013 najib 3 Teo fumed that Najib could congratulate Tsai and Yeo in his Chinese Facebook ‘Ah Jib Gor' site while at the same time endorsing the policies of Finas that hamper, rather than encourage, Chinese filmmakers in Malaysia.

Teo reminded Najib to look into the fate of ‘The New Village' , which was put in cold storage after controversy arose over its narrative.

"To date, after ‘The New Village' was sent for a second review for a period of four months, we still have not heard any response from the Film Censorship Board on whether the film is free to hit the silver screen.

"This is a total contradiction to Najib Razak's message that our government has been encouraging the local movie development," Teo said in a statement issued today.

‘Only films like Tanda Putera are encouraged'

Najib in his ‘Ah Jib Gor' Facebook page sent the message that the government always encourages the creative industry and that he hoped Malaysian artistes and movie makers would continue to shine overseas.

Teo noted that the government's encouragement for creative industry was only true for Malay language films such as 'Tanda Putera' , which flopped at the box office.

tanda putera premiere 200813 reception 02 She noted that a fresh filmmaker who wished to apply for the maximum fund of RM30,000 to shoot a 15-minute short film, documentary or animation has to have at least 60 percent of the content in the Malay language.

Similarly, a film must be 100 percent in Malay to be eligible for the Dana Penerbitan Filem Kenegaraan dan Warisan or National Heritage Film Fund, the fund that backed the 'Tanda Putera' production.

"These limitations no doubt have greatly restricted the development of local Chinese, Tamil and English movies," Teo said.

She noted that despite the best efforts of Finas, most of the locally produced movies failed to make ends meet. There were 76 local movies being screened in 2012, with an average production cost of RM1.65 million and their average box office collections amounted to RM1.28 million.

From January to September 2013, a total of 50 local movies were screened. The average production cost per movie was RM2.04 million but each only collected an average box office of RM1.21 million.

In order to "encourage the local movie production", Teo said, Najib's primary task should be to ensure the early release of ‘The New Village' and that Finas should also amend its restricted rules and regulations for funding local films.