Yasmin Ahmad in ICU, Twitter Top Ten

Critically acclaimed Malaysian film and TV commercial director Yasmin Ahmad is in critical condition after collapsing during a presentation at a TV station TV3 this afternoon. Yasmin, who gained prominence for a series of commercials touching on community messages for Malaysian gas and petroleum giant Petronas, began her career as a copywriter before rising to become a creative force in the advertising industry.

She was recently inducted into the inaugural Malaysian Advertising Hall of Fame by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia. She won the Asian Film Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for Sepet in 2004. Sepet and its sequel Gubra won the Best Film award at the Malaysian Film Festival in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Her other films include Mukhsin (2006), Muallaf (2008) and the recently released Talentime.

Yasmin was due to start shooting for a new project in Japan called Forget Me Not with a Japanese producer at the end of the year.

The sheer volume of posts with the words Yasmin Ahmad has propelled her name to the top the list of Twitter's top-10 trending topics, beating Michael Jackson and Tim Burton's Alive in Wonderland.