Compiled by C. ARUNO, JUSTIN ZACK and R. ARAVINTHAN
MALAYSIAN director Chong Keat Aun’s latest feature film Snow in Midsummer won in only one out of the nine nominations it received at the Golden Horse Awards, reported Sin Chew Daily.
Chong, who bagged the Best Director award in 2020 for his debut feature film Story of Southern Islet, had been touted as one of the favourites to win the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards.
However, despite the large number of nominations and the fact that it was the opening film at the awards, it was largely snubbed by the panel of judges.
The only award the film won was Best Sound Effects, thanks to the efforts of sound designers Tu Duu-chih, Wu Shu-yao and Chen Kuan-ting.
Chong was, however, unperturbed by the results and congratulated the winners.
Asked if Snow in Midsummer will be shown in Malaysia, Chong replied saying that he still has three more film festivals to attend in December this year before planning to get the movie onto the big screen back home.
It was earlier reported that Chong expressed concern that the film will not pass the scrutiny of local censors as it is a tale of the aftermath of the May 13 racial riots.
> Chinese educationist group Dong Zong wants the Education Ministry to consider restarting the holiday teacher training programme (Program Diploma Perguruan Malaysia – Kursus Dalam Cuti) to help address the nationwide shortage of teachers at SJKCs, reported China Press.
Dong Zong chairman Tan Tai Kim said they estimated that Chinese vernacular schools were short of around 1,300 teachers and will be made worse by the 600 to 700 retiring teachers every year.
One way to address this issue, Tan said, was to train more teachers.
“Dong Zong will be meeting the Deputy Education Minister on Nov 29. We hope to reflect the problems faced by Chinese vernacular schools and get an update from her,” he said.
The holiday teacher training programme is an 18-month course by the Education Ministry under which candidates are trained to be qualified teachers.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
