Limkokwing student wins ‘Best Screenplay’ in Youth Creative PSA Short Film Contest
Digital Film and Television student, Kubendera A/L M.S Mahadevan, continues to shine in the film world, winning the ‘Best Screenplay’ award in the Youth Creative PSA Short Film Contest 2013, following his earlier win of the ‘Best Director’ award in the Talk to the Lenses short film competition in December last year.
The recent competition ran from March until June 2013, and the awarding ceremony was on the 3rd August 2013 in Penang. The contest was open to everyone, including industry film makers from around Malaysia. Competitors had to do a Public Service Announcement between three to five minutes in length on any theme of their choosing.
His PSA is called ‘Orumur’, and it is about the dangers of spreading rumors on social network sites. The story is about two girls who recorded a scene of two young men of different races fighting, and they uploaded it on Facebook. The video went viral and started an online racial conflict, only to find out that the guys who were ‘fighting’ are actually friends, and they were just fooling around, not really fighting.
On the 2012 contest, his film was a Tamil short film called ‘Naan Thirudan’, which translates to ‘I’m a thief’. It’s about two boys who wanted to buy a laptop. Someone claiming to be a thief offers to sell them a laptop at a cheap price, and they buy it, disregarding the fact that he was a thief, only to find out later that they have been cheated by the thief.
Both contests included competitors from all over Malaysia, but he says he was confident of his films because he believed in his work.
Kubendera, currently in the fifth semester of the Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Digital Film & Television programme, says that a good movie should be able to catch the attention of the audience and keep them engrossed, and he encourages other film students who wants to enter competitions to take their time creating a captivating story, because the story is the key to the performance of the movie.
“Film makers have to be more intelligent when drafting their story,” he says.
Regarding the Malaysian film industry, which he intends to enter someday, he believes still needs an improvement in quality and creativity, and believes it is heading in the right direction.
“The Malaysian film industry is progressing well, but it would take time before we reach the Hollywood or even Bollywood standards,” he said.
On the many problems that plague the film industry, like piracy and preference of international movies to local ones, he believes Malaysian film makers have to prove to their audience that they can compete. On piracy, he said people need to be made aware of the impact of piracy in the film industry, and he intends to make a PSA on piracy.
He encourages film students to enter as many competitions as possible as it “widens your horizons and exposes you to industry standards.”
“Don’t worry about the competitors, try to participate and bring forth your unique ideas. Every time you participate, you improve yourself,” he said.
