Here In My Home

The 22nd Malaysian Film Festival awards ceremony were held last night, with Talentime up for eleven prizes. Unlike Sepet, the bitter-sweet inter-ethnic romance that majorly contributed towards making Yasmin Ahmad a household name in her home country, it was named Best Film. However, it finally garnered the late filmmaker the Best Director prize that eluded her in previous years, even that which saw her offer up the sublime Mukhsin.

For many of her fans, including myself, the award feels like "too little, too late". Still, better late than never, I suppose. And I really hope that the country's powers and denizens alike will remember what Yasmin Ahmad stood for along with her creations -- all of which offered up a vision of a Malaysia which all of its citizens can truly feel they belong in as well as are proud and privileged to be a part.

As a reminder of that vision, here's a music video that she co-directed with fellow Malaysian filmmaker Ho Yuhang (whose admirable Rain Dogs she had a Cantonese-speaking role; and who also appeared in a Malay-speaking role in Yasmin's Mukhsin!):-



Entitled Here In My Home (what I was tempted to entitle my previous post...), the song's written by Pete Teo, who also produced the music video. Made as a project by a group of Malaysian Artistes For Unity, featured performers include individuals whose faces will be familiar to those who've watched Yasmin's movies... and, also, a smiling Yasmin herself.

Seeing Yasmin in that video is, to say the least, a bitter-sweet experience capable of evoking smiles as well as tears. Just like pretty much all of her work, actually. So once again, I have to say (write): thank you, Yasmin. And may you rest in peace.