Malaysian Cinema in the New Millennium: Transcendence Beyond Multiculturalism

A pioneering and comprehensive study of recent Malaysian cinema.

Malaysian Cinema in the New Millennium offers a new approach to the study of multiculturalism in cinema by analyzing how a new wave of filmmakers champion cultural diversity using cosmopolitan themes. Adrian Lee offers a new inquiry of Malaysian cinema that examines how the "Malaysian Digital Indies" have in recent years repositioned Malaysian cinema within the global arena. The book shines a new light on how politics and socioeconomics have influenced new forms and genres of the post-2000s generation of filmmakers and provides a clear picture of the interactions between commercial cinema and politics and socioeconomics in the first two decades of the new millennium. It also illustrates how the Malaysian Digital Indies functions as a site for questioning and proposing a new national identity in the era of advanced global capitalism and new Islamisation.

Adrian Yuen Beng Lee is an associate professor, head of the Department of Film and Performing Arts, and programme leader of postgraduate studies in the School of Arts, Sunway University. Awarded a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2012, he has researched Malaysian cinema, communication, media and cultural studies, and creative industries. He is co-editor of Media and Elections: Democratic Transition in Malaysia and an award-winning academic, filmmaker, and author.