Film director lambasts poor quality control on PBS

Established film and artistic director Mario Philip Azzopardi said it was unacceptable that the national TV station brought commercial interests before ensuring high-level quality.

In an interview with Sunday newspaper ILLUM, Azzopardi said that local drama rarely reached high quality because there’s no development, and no one to push for it.

“As national television, it is duty-bound to promote programmes of certain quality but instead, PBS are just selling TV hours and the rest depends on the professionalism of the producers. This leaves little room for proper quality control,” Azzopardi said.

A few months ago, Frederick Testa was appointed head of drama at PBS but in October, his own show was scrapped by PBS since it did not reach its expectations.

“In this sector there’s no room for fairness. Either you’re good or you’re not. Those who are not capable should not be given airtime,” Mario Philip Azzopardi told Illum.

The film director said the acting level in Malta was acceptable but from a technical point of view there was much to be desired.

Azzopardi’s latest venture into film-making, a Maltese-Canadian joint production of a TV series with numerous Maltese actors, just got the green light to be broadcasted in the US.

Read more in today’s edition of ILLUM.