Jazzy Pictures Producing 3 Feature Films to lead the Malaysian Film Industry Back to Track

Under the influence of the COVID-19, the global film industry has been hit hard and faced the challenged affect including the movie production and film festival operation. The Malaysian film industry is, of course, no exception, the filming activities in Malaysia has been forced to temporarily delayed.

Jazzy Pictures Producing 3 Feature Films to lead the Malaysian Film Industry Back to Track

Recently, the government announced the implementation of Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) from 10th June to 31th August 2020, which allows the filming of movies, drama, TV series and TV commercials to resume its operation locally. However, the production team must strictly follow the standard operating procedures (SOP) that certified by government throughout the whole production process, especially to keep social distancing and avoid close contact among each other. Therefore, the managing director of Jazzy Pictures, Joanne Goh hopes to start the integration and restoration on the operation of the Malaysian film industry and the team is currently preparing for a line-up of three feature film projects.

Jazzy Pictures is currently preparing for the pre-production of three feature-length films, which includes two local productions and one international co-production project with Hong Kong. The principal photography of these projects is expected to commence in the end of this year or the first quarter of 2021, however Ms. Goh will be joining in all of these three projects as the executive producer and producer.

‘The local film industry is currently still in the inactive condition, many filmmakers are unable to engage and work on any job or project, especially the independent filmmakers,’, said by Ms. Goh. Ms. Goh said that she has been actively conducting many online meetings with the local filmmakers and discussing various types of scripts during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period. She hopes to meet and execute good and workable film projects as soon as possible, thus to help the independent filmmakers to increase the employment opportunities and to increase the income of the film industry.

Besides, Ms. Goh also mentioned that the Jazzy Pictures is currently preparing for a project in collaboration with the Malaysian director Mark Lee - <YAYA> (tentative title), written by Mark Lee as well. Mark Lee had previously produced numerous short films and TV commercials, he never thought of just stop there but continue to challenge on writing and directing feature-length film since his previous documentary projects <At Rainbow’s End> (2017) and <At Rainbow’s End 2> (2019). <YAYA> is a Malay-language feature film about the refugee father and daughter who smuggled from Indonesia to Malaysia, and because they had no proof of their identity, thus the father was forced to be illegal foreign workers in a landfill. 

The daughter was suffered from a very rare genetic disorder that is life-threatening when exposed to any sunlight since she was born. Her voluntary medical doctor even predicts that she might not live past her teens. Although he was not the biological father of the daughter, however, this father loved his daughter very much takes care of her unconditionally. 

Regarding her daughter's health condition, the father can only try on different creative ways to let her stay at home, and always reminding her not to step out of the house. The story will continue to develop into the people and incident that the father and daughter encounter in the landfill, and what are the consequences that these people and incident will bring to the father and daughter?

After several meetings between Jazzy Pictures team and the director, they decided to invite the renowned local actor and director Nam Ron and the Filipino new actress Crisel Consunji to join this project. Nam Ron was the director of Jazzy Pictures’ first co-production project <Crossroads: One Two Jaga>, whereas Crisel Consunji was the lead actress of their distributed film <Still Human>. 

Both of them received numerous awards and recognitions from several film festivals on their respective films. Hence, Ms. Goh said that she is confident in the decision of approaching both of them and strongly believes that they can play their superb acting skills in this project. She also mentioned that the team is still discussing and coordinate on the other cast line-up. For the latest updates, kindly visit the website at www.jazzy-pictures.com