The crew members of Three Production Sdn Bhd’s film ‘Come Play with Us’ lodged a police report against the company yesterday over a back pay dispute.

The crew members had previously claimed that Three Production has held back their salaries for seven months now, collectively amounting to RM500,000.

‘Come Play with Us’ production manager Eva Hui represented the crew members in lodging the report at the Hulu Kelang police station, demanding that Three Production be investigated.

The crew members also lodged a complaint with the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) through the Malaysian Video Staff Union (Profima) and submitted the police reports and related documents to Finas.

Deputy director-general Khalidah Mohd Darus said Finas would examine the complaint and take necessary action.

“We just received the documents today (Wednesday) and we are very concerned about such issues. This (back pay issue) should not happen to a film’s crew members.

“I will discuss with the Finas management and decide on the next course of action,” Khalidah said.

She said that Finas would call both sides to give their explanations and find the best solution.

'Freelance does not mean free'

Meanwhile, Profima president Khir Mohd Noor said that this was one of the larger back pay cases received by the union from film crew members.

“Our role is to help the union members, that is the ‘Come Play with Us’ crew members, to utilise all procedures to get back their salaries from the Three Production company, including bring this issue to Finas.

“The crew members can also sue the company and the union can help them to get a lawyer,” Khir said during a press conference at Finas.

Profima honorary secretary Rusila Hashim added that the union has to disclose this back pay case because the company has held back their salaries for seven months now.

“For me, seven months is quite a long time and the sums owed are also large.

“We received the union members’ complaints in May and we immediately dealt with this issue with the company, but negotiations between both sides did not come to a satisfactory result.

“Freelance does not mean free. We hope Three Production company will pay the salaries as soon as possible,” said Rusila.

Company insists it cannot afford to pay arrears

During the press conference, Khir also contacted one of the Three Production company founders, Jess Teong, to ask about the back pay issue, and Teong reiterated that the company was not able to pay the arrears at the moment.

“It’s beyond our control. We are just like a contractor, when the developer (investor) does not give the contractor money, the contractor surely does not have money to pay arrears to the workers.

“He (the investor) also owes us money,” Teong said during the phone call.

When Khir asked when the staff would be able to get their salary arrears, Teong said a court case between the production company and the investor would start to be heard next month.

“We also hope that we can pay the salary arrears as soon as possible, but the amount is a bit huge and we cannot afford it,” Teong said.

Teong was also the director of the movie ‘The Kid from the Big Apple’ produced by her company Three Production, which has won acclaim.

Previously, the other founder of the Three Production company, Stanley Law, told Malaysiakini that the company itself was also a victim because the Singaporean investor of the movie ‘Come Play with Us’ was facing difficulties as its funds had been frozen by the Singaporean regulatory authorities.

Law said that the investor was unable to transfer the agreed funds for the movie, thus Three Production company plans to take legal action against the Singaporean investor to get the promised investment money.