Marche Du Film: Finas targets more local company participation next year

From Nur Adila Abdul Wahab

CANNES (France), May 21 (Bernama) -- The National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) is targeting the participation of 30 Malaysian companies in next year's edition of Marche Du Film, compared with only 12 companies this year.

Marche Du Film is the film industry’s largest gathering for producers, financiers, broadcasters, distributors, suppliers and buyers from around the world to meet, share ideas and strike deals.

Finas chief executive officer, Prof Dr Md Nasir Ibrahim, said apart from that, Finas would collaborate with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, in an effort to promote the country at the international level.

He said the smart partnership of all the ministries would be able to expand the market for Malaysian films to the global level, thus attracting more tourists to the country.

“Our participation in the international film market needs to be maximised so that we can highlight attractive locations, as well as showcase our culture, arts and traditions. We also have various ethnicities that we can highlight as well.

“There are not many film producers involved this time around so I have planned to expand the promotions, for major film producers to participate in future,” he told Malaysian journalists here.

A total of 250 companies from 110 countries are participating in the nine-day film market, starting May 17.

For this edition, a total of 12 Malaysian companies, featuring various creative content products such as feature films, animations, documentaries and others, attended the film exhibition, with nine companies physically present while three other companies participated online.

Md Nasir said he would meet the chief executive officer of the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), to introduce and promote incentives from MATRADE to enable more local filmmakers to participate in the world’s largest international film exhibition next year.

“For the future, Finas has planned to hold promotions in advance, as well as to work with MATRADE to obtain appropriate incentives.

“Insya-Allah, with an appropriate and effective approach we will be able to expand our participation, because with more participation the Malaysia Pavilion will be bigger, and with more content, this will be able to attract more visitors to our pavilion,” he said.

Commenting on the target of RM50 million in foreign investment to Malaysia through the Film in Malaysia Incentive (FIMI), Md Nasir is optimistic that the target can be achieved before the film exhibition ends on Wednesday (May 25).

He said that thus far, several foreign companies had shown interest in buying Malaysia’s creative content.

-- BERNAMA