Malaysian Tamil Cinema quality rises thanks to young filmmakers
According to him, the new generation of creators has demonstrated the ability to deliver fresh, high-quality stories - an encouraging sign of positive development within the local film industry.
"The film I watched recently, Mirugasirisham, showcases the kind of quality often seen in works by first-time filmmakers. These are people who started out creating content for social media and YouTube, and now they're making films - and the results are truly impressive,' he said when contacted by Bernama.
Azmir Saifuddin also expressed his admiration for the film's strong storytelling, direction, and performances, noting that it was all the more impressive considering it was produced by newcomers to the industry.
"I was also pleasantly surprised by the storytelling, direction, and acting from this newcomer. The quality is on par with Tamil films from India.
"The problem is that this film hasn't been widely promoted. Many of our viewers still believe that watching local films in cinemas isn't worth it. But they should come out and support these screenings, because the quality of our local productions is now truly comparable,' he said.
He also explained that FINAS remains open and inclusive in its support for local film development, regardless of language or genre.
"We don't limit support based on language or genre. We regularly engage with the industry, including Tamil filmmakers, to understand current issues and trends,' he said.
He added that the improvement in the quality and reception of local Tamil films is evident in the success of C4 Cinta, which recorded box office earnings of over RM2.5 million last year, more than double the earnings of previous local Tamil films.
He also announced that the team behind the acclaimed film Jagat is set to release two new projects this year, one of which is a festival-style film that also promises high production quality.
Meanwhile, Mirugasirisham producer and general manager of Five Star Trading, Dr Sai Suthan Krishnan, said that despite receiving glowing reviews from critics and audiences across various communities, local Tamil films have continued to record disappointing box office figures.
"There are many young and emerging talents in Malaysia who are simply waiting for the right opportunity to showcase their filmmaking skills and tell stories that reflect our regional and cultural Malaysian roots.
"We discovered a strong script by Vijay Ganesh and a talented young team at Sage Heroes. With a like-minded and passionate cast and crew, Mirugasirisham came to life after two years in production,' he said.
Sai said the film has received excellent critical response, with viewers praising both its storytelling and technical execution.
"Every Malaysian who has watched the film, whether Indian or from other communities, has given glowing reviews, particularly for its storytelling and technical aspects. It's an engaging and entertaining two and a half hours, well spent in the cinema appreciating the film's sound and visuals,' he said.
"Producers and filmmakers rely on strong box office numbers to inspire confidence among potential investors. It encourages them to boldly support the next generation of passionate artists and filmmakers, helping to realise bigger dreams and create works of international quality,' he added. - BERNAMA
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All of which makes it hard to pinpoint a 'typical' podcast viewer. Is it a couple on the couch with a bucket of popcorn, streaming to their smart TV? Is it a young office worker scrolling through TikTok during his commute? Or is it the same person engaging in different behaviour at different points in the day? Alyssa Keller, who lives in Michigan with her family, said sometimes she watches 'The Shawn Ryan Show' on the television with her husband. But more often, she puts the video on the phone for a few hours while her children are napping. This means she sometimes has to watch marathon episodes in chunks. 'I've been known to take multiple days,' she said. 'Nap times only last for like two hours.' In February, YouTube announced that more than 1 billion people a month were viewing podcasts on its platform. According to Tim Katz, head of sports and news partnerships at YouTube, that number is so large that it must include users who are actually mainlining five-hour talk shows. 'Any time you have a number that large, you're going to have a broad swath of people consuming in lots of different ways,' Katz said. Recently, The New York Times asked readers if and how they consume video podcasts. Many of the respondents said they played video podcasts in the background while attending to work or chores, and still treated podcasts as audio-only products. A few said they liked being able to see the body language of podcast hosts and their guests. Still others said that they didn't like video podcasts because they found the visual component distracting or unnecessary. Video can have its drawbacks. Lauren Golds, a 37-year-old researcher based in Virginia, said she regularly hate-watches podcasts at work – in particular 'On Purpose,' which is hosted by British entrepreneur and life coach Jay Shetty. She said she had had awkward encounters when co-workers have looked at her screen and told her that they love the show she's watching. 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Now, the size of the market for video podcasts is too large to ignore, and many ad deals require podcasters to have a video component. The platforms where these video podcasts live, predominantly YouTube and Spotify, are creating new kinds of podcast consumers, who expect video. McDermott, the Von fan, said the video component made her feel like she had a friendly guest in her home. 'It feels a little more personal, like somebody is there with you,' she said. 'I live alone with my two cats and I'm kind of in a rural area in Pennsylvania, so it's just a little bit of company almost.' The world of podcasts today is also far more integrated into social media. Clips of video podcasts slot neatly into the Gen Z and millennial behemoths of TikTok and Instagram. The sophisticated YouTube recommendation algorithm suggests relevant new podcasts to viewers, something that wasn't possible in the old, siloed model on other platforms. To get a sense of just how much things have changed, imagine the viral podcast appearances of the 2024 presidential campaign – Donald Trump on Von's podcast and Kamala Harris on 'Call Her Daddy' – happening without YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X. You can't. In a sign of the times, in June, radio company Audacy shuttered Pineapple Street Studios, a venerable podcast producer known for its in-depth narrative shows such as 'Wind of Change' and Ronan Farrow's 'The Catch and Kill Podcast.' Jenna Weiss-Berman, who co-founded Pineapple Street, is now head of audio at comedian and actress Amy Poehler's Paper Kite Productions. Poehler's new podcast, 'Good Hang with Amy Poehler,' is typical of the genre: a charismatic, well-known host, interviewing other charismatic, well-known people. Weiss-Berman said she was concerned that the costs associated with high-quality video production would be prohibitive for smaller podcast creators, who faced almost no barrier to entry when all the genre required was a few microphones. 'If you want to do it well, you need a crew and a studio,' Weiss-Berman said. For podcasters with an established audience, the potential of video to open up new audiences for the world of talk podcasts is obvious. (The Times has introduced video podcasts hosted by some of its more recognisable columnists.) Adam Friedland, a comedian who started his video interview show in 2022, first came to prominence on an irreverent and lewd audio-only hangout podcast with two fellow comedians. He got an early taste of the limitations of traditional podcast distribution when he discovered fan cutups of the funniest moments of his old show on YouTube. 'There was an organic growth to it,' Friedland said. 'We weren't doing press or promoting it.' Friedland's new show is an arch interview program with high-profile guests and considerably fewer impenetrable – not to mention scatological – references. Along with that, distribution over YouTube has made a once cult figure something a bit closer to a household name, as he discovered recently. 'There was a regular middle-aged guy at a Starbucks who said he liked the show,' Friedland recalled. 'Some guy holding a Sweetgreen.' Friedland's show is the rare video podcast with a distinctive visual point of view. The vintage-looking set is a reconstruction of 'The Dick Cavett Show.' And Friedland made it clear that he prefers people to watch the show rather than listen to it. The many ways that Americans now consume podcasts – actively and passively, sometimes with another device in hand, sometimes without – bears an obvious similarity to the way Americans consume television. 'I think podcasts could become kind of the new basic cable television,' said Marshall Lewy, chief content officer of Wondery, a podcast network owned by Amazon. Think: shows that are cheaper to produce than so-called premium streaming content, consumed by audiences used to half-watching television while scrolling their smartphones, in a wide variety of genres. Indeed, although talk dominates among video podcasts, Lewy said he thought the trend for video would lead to more shows about food and travel – categories beloved by advertisers – that weren't ideal when podcasts were audio only. All of which calls into question the basic nature of the term 'podcast.' Riismandel, who runs the research firm Signal Hill, said he thought the category applied to any programming that could be listened to without video and still understood. According to Katz, the YouTube executive, the nature of the podcaster is undergoing a redefinition. It includes both audio-only podcasters moving to video, as well as social media content creators who have realised that podcasts present another opportunity to build their audiences. One concern with the shift to video, according to former Vox and Semafor video boss Joe Posner, is that people who are less comfortable on screen will be left out. This could lead to a deepening gender divide, for example, since women are much more likely to face harassment over their looks, especially from an engaged online fan base – and therefore potentially less likely to want to be on camera for hours on end. Still, for all the eyeballs moving to YouTube, audio remains the way most consumers experience podcasts, according to the April survey, with 58% of people listening to only audio or to a minimised or backgrounded video. And although YouTube is now the most used platform for podcast consumption, per the survey, it's far from monolithic; a majority of podcast consumers say they use a platform other than YouTube most often, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts. That's why at least one pillar of audio-first podcasting doesn't see much to be alarmed about. Ira Glass, creator of the foundational long-form radio show 'This American Life,' said the fact that the podcast tent has gotten bigger and thrown up a projector screen doesn't threaten a program like his. 'That's a strength, not a weakness – that both things exist and are both called the same thing,' Glass said. He stressed that audio-only podcasting has formal strengths that video podcasts don't. 'There's a power to not seeing people,' Glass said. 'There's a power to just hearing things. It just gets to you in a different way. But if people want to watch people on a talk show, that seems fine to me. I don't feel protective of podcasting in that way. I don't have snowflake-y feelings about podcasts.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
