KUALA LUMPUR: Starting from January next year, television stations will not feature elderly characters being played by young actors in heavy make up in local TV dramas and telemovies.
The National Film Development Corporation (Finas) chairman Datuk Hans Isaac has issued the condition in order to safeguard the rights and welfare of veteran artistes who had been rampantly sidelined.
“Finas recently met up with the various television stations and they all agreed that young actors should not be playing the roles of elderly people,” said Hans after officiating the Veteran Artistes Support Congress 2019 at Finas in Hulu Klang this morning.
He explained that the stations had agreed that the method of using heavy make up effects to transform the young into older people just made the characters look unnatural and unconvincing onscreen.
“After discussions, all parties involved came to the conclusion that this condition should be implemented. This is to ensure that no producer will employ young actors to portray elderly characters. We are very happy that the television stations are in agreement with us,” he added.
“This is part of a campaign organised by Finas to encourage veteran artistes to return to the workforce. The television stations will determine the number of projects that will utilise the expertise of veteran artistes in 2020 or the average amount of involvement by the veterans in productions. They will relay the information to Finas by the end of this year. We hope to implement this programme in January,” he said.
Meanwhile, Finas and the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia have agreed to sponsor 240 veteran artistes with insurance policies under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) next year.