Krishen Jit Fund 2021 doubles arts support, announces 11 beneficiaries

This year's Krishen Jit Fund featured 11 recipients (from top, left) Susan Philip, Anthony Chong, Rezza Coebar Abel, Talha K.K., Komeil Zarin, a reprentative of Syamsul Azhar, Izat Arif, Jeffrey Lim and Gogularaajan Rajendran. Photo: The Star/Ong Soon Hin

Gogularaajan Rajendran, a filmmaker, has always heard rich stories from his grandparents about estate life in Malaysia in the 1960s. What bothered him was the fact that he had never seen such stories depicted in local films.

“All this while, plantation stories have only been focused on the struggles of the people. But there is more to it than that. I believe we have missed out the life, joys and humour of Malaysian Indian communities who lived in the plantations. I'm curious about the many rich and nuanced stories out there. I’m planning to interview 50 people over the age of 60 from five different estates as part of a documentary film and research project for my upcoming feature film Kaali,” says Gogu, as he is fondly known.

Krishen Jit Fund awards 11 grants to 11 Malaysian artists

Some of the recipients of the Krishen Jit Fund this year

KUALA LUMPUR: The Krishen Jit Fund, that promotes the aspirations of promising Malaysians who thrive in the creative arts, is back and has just awarded grants to 11 individual and collective artists.

The fund, managed by Astro and the Five Arts Centre and supported by Creador Foundation, awarded RM86,000 to the artists in a ceremony held at the Five Arts Centre in Taman Tun Dr Ismail today.

The creative recipients for this year are Anthony Alexander Chong whose project is the Malaysian Sign Language literature workshop, Jeffrey Lim (Khemah Kamera), Flux28 Collective (Night Shift), Izat Arif (Hybrid Exhibition), Rezza Coebar (Earthshine), Fraulina Tajuddin (Young Kids' Web Series), Gogularaajan Rajendran (Plantation Life: As It Was), Syamsul Azhar Mohamad Azmi (Dari Pinggiran), Arief Iskandar Hamizan (Panas Play Reads), Susan Philip (The Satira Archives) and Komeil Zarin (30 Portraits In Exile).

Would you mind to use correct term please? Correct term is Jurubahasa BIM (BIM interpreter), instead of Jurubahasa Isyarat (Sign Language Interpreter).

It is really very important to use correct term. I have seen wrong terms in mass media and it will cause people think that every interpreter in Malaysia masters 200 sign languages which is not true.

Nobody here in Malaysia or other countries is expert to evaluate interpreters for 200 sign languages.

I could not understand why media keeps using this “sign language interpreter” when the term is not correct.

Government officers will not understand that Malaysian Deaf is capable to communicate in BIM only, not 200 sign languages. People misunderstand that KTBM is a sign language, which is not true too. If we keep promising “sign language interpreter”, the government will say,

Since it is “sign language”, so why not we take sign language from Japan, UK, Australia, Hong Kong for the Deaf students. All sign languages are just same thing. Everyone uses hands.