MALAYSIAN FILM DIRECTOR EPITOMISES GLOBALISED CULTURE OF FILM MAKING

from Manik Mehta

NEW YORK, May 8 (Bernama) -- Malaysian film director Wi Ding Ho who made
good overseas is a fine product of globalisation.

Ho graduated from Kanbar Institute of Film
and Television at New York University which had produced many talents in film
making.

After 12 years in the West, Ho arrived in Taiwan in 2001, initially
working as an advertising director before Taiwan’s National Palace Museum
commissioned him to shoot a promotion film.

This was followed with an assignment by Discovery Channel which asked him
to do a film called “Portrait Taiwan: Liu Jin-biao”.

Ho shot to fame when short film called “Respite” was premiered at the
International Critics’ Week of Cannes Film Festival in 2005.

He won a pair of awards, the Kodak Discovery award for best short film and
the TV5 Young Critics’ award.

“Respite” was the first film in Taiwan that used bleach bypass laboratory
technique and shot only with one 85 lens camera.

Ho has just released his latest full feature film called “Pinoy Sunday”,
which many familiar with ethnic film making describe as a “bitter-sweet
tragicomedy”.

The film has been well received by critics and could catapult Ho to the
forefront of global film makers with a penchant for offbeat themes.

Ho’s rise to fame could provide greater visibility to Malaysia as the
birthplace of many talented personalities living in different part of the world.

“Pinoy Sunday” tells the story of Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan.

Indeed, the film gives an entirely different perspective about Taiwan and
the milieu in which foreign workers live.

The film has universal appeal as it could happen to foreign workers
anywhere be it in Dubai, Singapore or even Malaysia.

Ho who lives in Taiwan was born in Muar, Johor in 1971.

-- BERNAMA