By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Exoticism doesn't exist anymore, says Malaysian-born Taiwan filmmaker
Malaysian Star inquires of waterlogged, deadpan festival favorite, director Tsai Ming-liang, about being the Malaysian-born son of a Chinese who works in Taiwan. “Being a Malaysian filmmaker working in Taiwan, Tsai Ming-liang would naturally have a unique perspective on the filmmaking scene here in Malaysia. Having been based in Taipei for more than 20 years, Tsai has been through everything from the end of martial law to the democratisation of Taiwan that led to a flood of new opportunities for filmmakers there… When asked about the Malaysian obsession with creating a national identity for our films or promoting our culture, Tsai, who was in town last week for the 50th Asia Pacific Film Festival, replied: “The worst thing one can do is to promote an image before everything else. It is not very smart to do so. There are no such things as exotic elements that you can sell in this modern world. The world is so global and well-informed, so exoticism doesn’t exist anymore.” … Tsai believes that [staying] true to himself that he has gotten this far. Apart from his ever-increasing collection of awards from film festivals around the world (the latest being a Silver Bear at Berlin for The Wayward Cloud [pic], he has also been invited, along with five other auteurs, to make a film to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. France has also invited him to make a film about the Louvre. For the Mozart anniversary, Tsai will be shooting a film, next year, about immigrant workers in Kuala Lumpur. It will be his first film to be set in Malaysia.
“I hope that our government will give the independent filmmakers more support,” he said. “I understand that our government may be concerned that the independent films are very personal or very artistic in nature, but it does not need to give the filmmakers large sums of money. It could just give a small sum for them to start things off and see what they can come up with…” Does Tsai see the irony of him being a Malaysian filmmaker attending a festival in Malaysia but representing Taiwan? “I’m fine with that… There are, in fact, a lot of filmmakers who don’t make films in their own countries but the people of their countries are still proud of them. My father who came from China inspired me to believe that it doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you do good things.”