Gubra: Best Picture at 19th Malaysian Film Festival

Technorati tags: Malaysia, Film, Gubra, FFM19, Yasmin Ahmad

Related post: The film that has Gubra-fied a nation (film review)

Congratulations, Yasmin!

Walski would've blogged about this earlier except that the day was pretty busy, but more importantly the FFM19 proceedings had to make way for something a tad bit more important. And so, as usual, this wouldn't be the first blog to report this.

Nevertheless, Gubra won several awards at the 19th Festival Filem Malaysia (FFM19), which had its awards ceremony last night (televised on Astro Ria, it is believed). And as somewhat of a vindication for Yasmin Ahmad, the film won Best Picture, Best Actress (Sharifah Amani), Best Screenplay, and Best Poster.

With the four awards (out of the 12 categories nominated), Gubra became the most award-winning film at the festival.

The news came as somewhat of a pleasant surprise to Walski, since he remembers that Yasmin had, at one time, refused to nominate the film due to the bashing it got from several conservative quarters after the release,

But Walski is sure that it must be indeed gratifying for Yasmin that her work to has been acknowledged by her peers.

Other winners include Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam 2 (Best Director - Shuhaimi Baba) and Afdlin Shauki, the surprise Best Actor winner for his role in Buli Balik. For more details, you can check out these news articles (in The New Straits Times and Berita Harian).

One little disappointment for Walski is that Pete Teo's haunting end-theme, "Who for you?" did not win the award for Best Original Theme Song, which went instead to "Ku Seru", sung by Misha Omar (composed by Shuhami Baba and Habsah Hassan, for Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam 2).

So what's next for Yasmin? Not surprisingly, she's not been resting on her laurels and has kept herself busy with her next feature film.
(more in the full post)

Mukhsin - My First Love Story

Mukhsin - My First Love Story is a prequel to Sepet (Yasmin's first feature-length film) and tells the story of a very young Orked and her first love. Walski has been following the progress of this film from Yasmin's weblog The Storyteller. The film has completed primary shooting and is currently in post-production. From what myAsylum gathers, this should be another beautiful film.

And in case you were wondering, the answer is NO! - no spoilers from myAsylum! The release date is yet to be announced, but will likely be sometime in 2007 (Walski's own guesstimate).

To say that filmmaking in Malaysia is challenging would be an understatement. With the recent controversies surrounding creative and non-mainstream films, it's obvious that there is a very fine line between what's acceptable, and what's not. Not so much for the movie-going audience, but from the numerous layers of gate-keepers a body of film work would have to pass through before it even gets to the cinemas.

In such a constricting environment, the honors garnered by Gubra at the 19th Malaysian Film Festival is no mean feat. And to have gotten peer acknowledgement could be a good sign - that perhaps art and creativity in film making may still have some hope yet in Malaysia.

And it is with this hope that Walski congratulates Yasmin Ahmad for her success thus far, and God-willing, to reach even greater heights in a field in which she has put so much love and passion into. And no matter what the obstacles, Kak Yasmin's passion shines on thru...