Edmund Yeo

In the last few months when I worked on my debut feature RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS, I couldn't help but remember my own experiences of six years ago, when I was shooting my first ever short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, in 2008. It's been six years, and I've done countless projects since then. But the fresh feeling of working with a professional cast and crew for the very first time continues to linger in my mind. Nothing makes me feel more excited than a film shoot, and it's a good thing that nothing has changed in these six years. Post by Edmund Yeo .

Back in January, I was on Kenneth Chaw's The Star article "Short Films starting to appeal to a bigger audience", discussing about my thoughts on short films . Filmmaker James Lee and Youtube sensation Jinnyboy were interviewed too. Prior to that, Kenneth had actually done a very lengthy email interview with me in preparation for his article. While a number of my quotes were in the final article, I thought I would like to share our entire discussion with everyone. I'm doing it now, with Kenneth's permission. (In truth, I have wanted to do this since January, but, ah, I never had the time.) So, here we go. Kenneth's questions are in bold . My answers will just be... normal text.

Today is Mother's Day, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share with you all my very first non-student short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (2008), which is now uploaded on Youtube

I'm presenting three of my short films at the KLANG CREATIVE FEST, held in Klang Centro ( map ) on the 8th of August, 4:30pm. (exactly a year after the opening of the Beijing Olympics 2008 :D ) The first one will be the comedy, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, which won an Honourable Mention award and a Best Acting award (for lead actress Kimmy) in the BMW Shorties 2008 before screening at the Dubai and Naoussa Film Festivals (Greece).

Was more than a little surprised when Nico of Fleishman-Hillard (organizer of BMW Shorties) told me yesterday that CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY will be airing on Astro Citra tonight at 8:30pm.

Just found out that I was on The Star today when Kien Keong told me about it via Facebook chat. Last week Sandra Low conducted an email interview with me, being one of the winners of last year's BMW Shorties with Chicken Rice Mystery. It's a great article worth a read because not just me, but Grand Prize winner Nazim, Audience Award winner Moe and co-Honourable Mention winner Maha were interviewed as well. Click the link below: SWEET SUCCESS My excerpt is here:

Dad (Chye Yang) pesters the Boy (Lim Ming Wei) into playing the PS2 with him in Chicken Rice Mystery I actually received this email a couple of days earlier, and had posted it on Twitter (and Facebook) as well, about my short film CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY getting invited for screening at the Naoussa International Short Film and Video Festival . It's the first festival screening of the film since last December's Dubai Film Fest. Here's the trailer of my short, if you haven't seen it before.

The screening for CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY was on the 13th and 14th. Evening on the first day, early afternoon on the second day. It's in competition under the AsiaAfrica Short Films category, and it was screened with 4 other short films of the same category. Aside from CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, the other short films screened in the same programme were: 1) Ambulance, by Richard Legaspi of Philippines 2) Young Blood, by Haolun Shu of China 3) Everything Is Okay, by Akjoltoy Bekbolotov of Kyrgyzstan 4) Bakhytzhamal, by Adilkhan Yerzhanov of Kazakhstan All directors were there to introduce the films, and then come back for the Q and A session after screening. Unfortunately, I only have photos of the first screening, and not the second. The following photos are from the Q and A session. Far left is Philip Cheah, programming consultant and moderator of the sessions. The first on the right was Haolun Shu, and then there's Richard standing beside me. A photo of us having dinner after the scre

The list of films for the Dubai International Film Festival had came out yesterday on their site. And I was absolutely blown away by their line-up. Now, aside from presenting my own short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, during its two screenings (I'm also facing some stiff competition under the Muhr AsiaAfrica Short category, and Naomi Kawase's chairing the jury committee for this, wow), I think I'll have plenty of time to catch as many films as possible during my eight days in Dubai. So I will now make a quick list for the films I intend to watch for now.

I actually received the email a few nights ago and chose to keep it mum until it's a certainty. So yes, it's confirmed, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY had been selected for competition at the Dubai International Film Fest 2008 this December. It will be featured in the short section of the Muhr Awards for Excellence in AsiaAfrica Cinema programme. A tremendous honour, and I'm truly elated about this.

Last week, I did an email interview with Gabey Goh of The Malay Mail. The article, Chicken Rice For The Win, came out on the newspapers yesterday, but it's online now! I talk about filmmaking and blogging. CHICKEN RICE FOR THE WIN Or you can just scroll down and read the interview below:

I normally don't cut trailers for short films. I think it's way too hard to do it, and I feel that I'm doing it at the risk of 1) giving away too much of the story or 2) making my films look worse than they really are. Normally, Hollywood trailers are 2 and a half minutes. 2 and a half minutes for a 90-100 minute long film is reasonable, but if a 10 minute short film has such a long trailer, I'm already showing a quarter of the film. That's as bad as doing a 25-minute long trailer. However, a certain film festival (name withheld so that I can save myself the embarrassment of not being selected) I've submitted both short films to have stated that trailers for submissions are optional. I felt a little conflicted, then I thought, 'why not?'. Might as well try it out. So I ended up editing a trailer for each of my film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY and my latest one, FLEETING IMAGES.

I first received a phone call from a lady from KLue sometime in late February (just a few days before I started shooting CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY). She told me that it was filmmaker and friend Tony Pietra who had given her my number, and the conversation was like that:

The New Straits Times had an article about the BMW Shorties yesterday (21st of May). They credited Lesly (and my absence) correctly. Great article. Check it out here . Some really good quotes too.

Yes! Utusan Malaysia has an article about last Thursday's BMW Shorties . But, they thought Lesly The Cinematographer was me after he went to the gala premiere to collect the award on my behalf!!!! Nope, I definitely did NOT fly back from Tokyo last Thursday to attend the gala premiere or underwent plastic surgery in Japan. RELATED POST: CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY Receives Two Awards at BMW SHORTIES! Tags: bmw shorties , chicken rice mystery , lesly leon lee , edmund yeo

Just got the news from my dad after he came back from the BMW Shorties Gala Premiere. CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY had received two awards! A Best Acting award for Kimmy as The Mom Who Sucks At Cooking, and an Honourable Mention from the jury as well! Happy for you, Kimmy!

Noted book reviewer and Swiftybuddy Ted Mahsun had posted about CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY. Combining elements of noir and several bits of comedy, which to me is very reminiscent of Chow Sing Chi's work in the Nineties, Chicken Rice Mystery is about a boy whose mother used to make really good chicken rice, a dish that everyone in the family remembers with great fondness.

The great Wingz at EVERYiBODi LAFU ROJAKS has posted a blog entry about CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY .

Now that it’s over, I can say this with a straight face: FROM EXPERIENCE (ahem ;) ) acting isn’t easy. There’s the nerves and it gets in the way of trying to remember your lines along with the facial expressions and body gestures that go along with them. I guess it shouldn’t be a problem for professional actors. But you know the cliché of women being able to juggle a few things at one time? Well, I don’t fit into that. - SUANIE Suanie, would had turned in an awards-worthy cameo in my film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, recounts her experience during the shoot . Fun stuff. Suanie undergoing make-up for CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (The very loving and supportive Chris Tock had also plugged Suanie and Chicken Rice Mystery two weeks ago .) Now, less on Chicken Rice Mystery and more on the 9 other BMW SHORTIES finalists. Caleb , little brother of my friend Sebastian had taken his time to watch all ten shortlisted films on BMW SHORTIES and posted his thoughts on each and every one of them . Check them ou

It seems that today's THE STAR had another write-up on BMW SHORTIES , and I got a special mention ... ... as the only guy who wasn't in the photo with the other 9 finalists. *sigh*