Malaysia
Having completed just four films, Malaysian director Yasmin Ahmad is bemused by the thought of her retrospectives being screened around the world.
'I used to think retrospectives are for people who are either very old or very dead,' the 50-year-old filmmaker says, laughing. 'I am neither, so at first it felt strange. Now I feel very honoured.'
Judging by the number of retrospectives held in her honour, Yasmin is Malaysia's most famous - if not the most successful - director. Her fourth feature, Mukhsin, was the first Malaysian film to be released nationwide in France, opening at 20 cinemas across the country last month.
A woman filmmaker is rare in Malaysia. In this multi-ethnic country, the population is often defined along ethnic and religious lines and, as the recent elections have shown, ethnicity is a thorny issue.
Yasmin makes a bold statement with her films, showing characters who befriend and even romance people of different colour and faith. 'I want people to think Yasmin Ahmad's films are about human beings, about people,' says the Malay director, whose husband is of Chinese descent. 'As for the multicultural bits, they simply reflect our society.'
