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and transferring culture. Thus, the government takes on the role of driver of development and stimulator
of new creative ideas and technologies to provide the knock-on effect on the nation’s economy.

Malaysia has a productive film industry since pre-independence in 1957. Since the early days too, the
Malaysian market has been dominated by the Hollywood, Bollywood, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and now the
Chinese imports. Most local films are produced by the independent houses and have been actively
promoted by FINAS (National Film Development Corporation Malaysia) at the international film festivals
including Busan Film Fest, Sundance Film Festival and New York Asia Film Festival. In 2020, a local house
ACE Pictures and KUMAN Pictures performed well at film festivals. The movie ROH (SOUL) was selected as
the country’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign Film.

Malaysia too is a preferred ASEAN destination for overseas production and post-production work, e.g. from
Hollywood films and television as well as for Disney +, and the Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. Other examples
of creative local post-production talent is The Life of Pi. So, Malaysia is developing as a hub for post-
production and animation is also getting recognition.

The Malaysian film industry, is the biggest sector of the creative economy and contributed to the GDP as
well as offering jobs to the labour market. Like the newspaper and magazine industry the film industry is
also culturally segmented according to language preference of the multi-ethnic audiences. Malay film
productions target Malay-speaking Malaysians, Chinese producers cater for Chinese-speaking audiences
and so are the Indian producers with the Tamil-speaking viewers. This language, cultural divide is not the
best combination for building one national identity.

Beginning 2019, Malaysian domestic films broke the RM100 (USD24.5 million) with 55 local productions
generating RM170 million in ticket sales. In 2022 one local production Mat Kilau collected nearly 100
million, a record for the country.

One hopes that perhaps sooner than later the formulation of intent of the Road to Oscar Project: The
Configuration of Malaysian Film Narrative and Cultural Identity for ‘Oscar Cinema’ would start to deliver.
The Minister and former Ministers of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia do not fail to call upon
the National Film Development Corp., Malaysia (FINAS) to draw-up action plans to chart the way to the
Oscars, like the South Korean Parasite did in 2019 and the Academy award for Best Supporting role won
by Ms Youn Yuh-Jung in 2020. And we know that the Korean roadmaps have delivered totally absorbing,
critical social issues as well as sometimes dark and real presentations of life as Koreans. Such products
have been so well-received and successful in the international marketplaces due to the inspiring stories
without being dogmatic and preachy.

Researchers of global E&M industry would soon pick up about the shifts of distribution of cultural power
in the CCI of non-Western countries. For instance, the spread of K-culture began in the late 1990s when K-
dramas captured television airtime across East, South and Southeast Asia. The South Korean government
introduced policies, subsidies and removed barriers, creating stable financial and encouraging innovation
and nurturing the export potentials, basically creating an environment in which the start-ups of CCIs were
able to push forward.

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