If South Korea Can Do it, We Can Too: Malaysian Minister Says Let’s Work on Winning an Oscar

By Ammar Haziq  •  17 Jun 2020 in News

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Winning an Oscar is considered one of the biggest achievements in the cinema world, and that’s what Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah proposed to the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) in “Project Oscar”.

This is a nod to Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, the first South Korean film to snatch an Oscar for Best Picture at the 2019 Academy Awards. If South Korea can do it, then there is nothing to stop Malaysia from doing the same.

“Maybe in 10 years or 20 years,” he said during a press conference after visiting Finas yesterday (Tuesday, 16 June).

“It took Korea about 30 years to win the award. It doesn’t matter how long, but the target must be there, and work on this has to start,” he said. He also noted that he was not the first minister to talk about winning the award.

“All I’m saying is let’s put the roadmap together and put it on paper. Let’s calculate the budget and what the strategy is. Learn from India and Korea… how they managed to get it. I know it is an aspiration to all film-loving Malaysians, and especially the filmmakers, but we really have to really put it down and work for it,” he added.

Saifuddin said “Project Oscar” should be a medium or long-term plan. He compared it with sports, stating that there were targets to win medals at prestigious sporting events from the SEA Games to the Olympics.

“Project Oscar” will be one of the four parts of the operation to improve movie-making in the country. The project as a whole will help the industry by increasing the quality of films, production and talents.

The next step will be to have an “incubator” period before starting a project to instil a stronger sense of patriotism amongst Malaysians.

Malaysia already has a library of amazing films, but if this project is able to encourage the industry to produce more quality and engaging stories, then why not?

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