Rain Town, first Chinese-language film directed by a Malay woman – ‘we wanted to break the norm’
- Debuting at the Silk Road International Film Festival, Rain Town is a Cantonese family story set in Malaysia’s Perak state from director Tunku Mona Riza
- She hopes the film will ‘intrigue all races in Malaysia’ and help them better understand Chinese culture
There should be nothing special in seeing a Cantonese-language film debut at a Chinese film festival.
But new Malaysian feature film Rain Town, screening at the Silk Road International Film Festival in Fuzhou, southeast China, this week, is the first of its kind: a Chinese-language film directed by a Malay woman, Tunku Mona Riza.
It is something unheard of in multiracial Malaysia, whose cinema industry is small and segmented into three linguistic and cultural markets: Bahasa Malaysia for the Malay majority, Mandarin or Cantonese for the Chinese population, and Tamil movies and TV shows for the Indian minority.
“I did this film because I would like Malaysians to realise that, as a harmonious multiracial country, we should all be able to narrate stories from other cultures’ points of view as long as one does extensive research and is respectful when narrating his story,” Mona says.
Mona’s films are known for their detailed research and deep insight on true stories and complex topics, such as her debut feature Redha (Beautiful Pain, 2016), the first Malaysian film to tackle the subject of autism.
