Local Tamil films need a boost to compete

AIS kosong to Malaysians is a drink of water with ice. But there is another ais kosong in town now – a local Tamil film made by a newcomer in the industry.

The film is a comedy that revolves around three strangers who met by chance and went on a road trip to Penang.

On their journey north, they unknowingly played havoc and poured cold water on the plans of two crime gangs who are at war with each other.

But there were salient moral lines in the film, like how complete strangers can be of help to one another, caring for society, organ donation, observing traffic rules and respecting the disabled vehicle drivers’ (OKU) parking bays.

I’m not really an enthusiast for locally-made movies and I would say this was easily the first made-in-Malaysia Tamil film I have seen.

What I would like to highlight

is the fact that not many local Tamil movies like Ais Kosong are getting the mileage they deserve in terms of audience number and publicity.

The small crowd in the cinema the day I watched Ais Kosong spoke volumes of the local film industry not having the correct mix in catapulting Tamil movies in this country.

Admittedly, budget constraints play a major factor in producing a movie and crowd expectations can be difficult to meet especially when movies from India are used as a benchmark, but what is more worrying is that local Tamil productions are positioned head-on to compete with those from India.

Three movies from India were released simultaneously with Ais Kosong. Obviously, with bigger names on the screen, the chance of cinema-goers skipping local movies is extremely high.

The fact remains that there are not many Malaysian Tamil movies made for the big screen. The cost can be pretty high relatively and the following is definitely less compared to Malay or Chinese movies primarily due to the size of the Tamil-speaking population here.

Thus, industry drivers like the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) could play a better role by priming the release of local Tamil movies to avoid clashing with mega productions from India.

Malaysian movie producers should be given some “home advantage” with Finas on the other end living up to its objective to “encourage, preserve and to ease the progress of the film industry’’ here, as stated on its website.

This is not about being overly protective but pitting locally-produced Tamil movies against foreign-made ones for the same pool of audience is very lopsided as the playing field is not level.

After all, how often in a year is a local Tamil movie made and launched in Malaysian cinemas?

To live up to its role in encouraging and preserving the local film industry, Finas should actively provide some leeway to our hopeful, young and vibrant talents in the Tamil cinema scene.

From producers to actors and the crew, it takes lots of effort, time and pain, not to mention financial expenses, to produce a single film.

At times, it may take a year to produce a single local film due to the vast limitation in facilities, equipment and expertise.

Our talents in the Tamil film industry must be provided with ample opportunities to one day produce world-class movies that would make headlines internationally.

Finas, with the cooperation of local Tamil film distributors and affiliated players, can be the prime mover.

In the meantime, to those who have yet to watch Ais Kosong, do support this local film and have a great laugh as it is an entertaining movie.

NARINDER PAL SINGH

Shah Alam