“KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian film director Yasmin Ahmad, who won accolades for her deeply felt depictions of everyday struggles with racial prejudice and social barriers, has died of complications from a stroke. She was 51.”
Yasmin's close friend, Fatimah Abu Bakar, confirmed her death late Saturday at a news conference in a Kuala Lumpur hospital. Relatives earlier said Yasmin underwent brain surgery to remove a blood clot Friday after she suffered a stroke.
Tributes poured in Sunday from politicians, entertainers and movie-goers who hailed her films and television commercials for inspiring people to strive for racial understanding in this multiethnic, Muslim-majority country.
"By bridging religious and racial differences through the unifying dimension of art, Yasmin was in a class of her own," opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said in a statement. "Her films ... were never short of social critiques that opened the public's eyes to the importance of unity and understanding."
Yasmin began her career as a copywriter before becoming an advertising company's creative director in the 1990s, when she drew attention for sentimental TV commercials that focused on family ties and how religious celebrations could bring together people from the ethnic Malay Muslim majority with the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.
She later embarked on Malay-language film work, reaping critical and commercial success with her second movie, "Sepet," a Malay word for slant-eyed. The 2004 drama, which portrayed a romance between an ethnic Malay teenage girl and a Chinese boy, won awards at film festivals in Malaysia, Japan and France.
Yasmin, a Malay who married an ethnic Chinese convert to Islam, directed six movies between 2003 and 2008, delving into issues such as religious faith, parental abandonment, AIDS and sexual discrimination _ always against a backdrop that reflected the country's ethnic diversity.
Although her movies were well-received by most Malaysians, they faced criticism by conservatives who often accused her work of tarnishing Malay culture. In 2007, Islamic clerics slammed her movie "Muallaf" because its lead actress shaved her head for the role of a runaway girl, an act they said violated Muslim tenets by making a woman look like a man.
Government censors sometimes excised scenes from her movies that seemed too risque, including ones of an elderly couple bathing together and of a Muslim character seen in a Chinese restaurant that served non-halal food.
Yasmin is survived by her husband and two siblings. (AP- Sunday July, 26).
HOW ABOUT OUR
Listening to this news,my mind come crossing the life after the death. Related to her, if in this world she keeps going creating controversy, how about her life after the death? However, I don not want to talk a lot about her, but I want to bring u all to think our eternal home after this life. Where were we be put after we left this world? How our life there? Its enjoying or keep suffering? Think for it and take action!!
Keep realizing on this,
Tg Abd Ghafar Tg Ahmad
4.40pm
5 Syaaban 1430H
28 Julai 2009
Office, K.Terengganu
2 comments:
Salam.
Jarang2 ana tengok akh guna English
(or is that bcoz i dont come often??)
Apepun, good try, and do it more often!!
Wish dat His blessings is with you always..
Cheerio...
Salam. U make me shy by giving comment bout da language. insyaAllah, i'll used it oftenly after dis.
Keep on learning,
TG
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