Rest in peace, Theo Angelopoulos

Yesterday, just like many other times, I woke up to the beeping sounds of Facebook chat, alerting me of incoming messages.

It was a film festival programmer friend of mine, his message was this:

Edmund, this has to do with one of your favourite film topics, Theo Angelopoulos. He had just died in a traffic accident, ran over by a motorbike!

Two of my shorts, LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER at Rotterdam International Film Festival 2012

After only a few days in Malaysia to celebrate Chinese New Year, I'm flying off again in less than 24 hours to Netherlands for the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Both my short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (making its European premiere) and another, GIRL IN THE WATER by Danish director Jeppe Ronde and my regular collaborator Woo Ming Jin ("THE TIGER FACTORY", "WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER"), which I helped to produce and edit, will part of the WAITING FOR SNOW IN MY KAMPONG program.

My segment in '60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero' also mentioned in NEGATIV

This article by Dennis Vetter at the highly-regarded German film website NEGATIV came out just a few days after the Dec 22 screening of the omnibus film '60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero' (on Christmas Day, actually).

I saw this article shortly after it was published and browsed through it hoping that I could understand something with my limited German skills. Unfortunately, the only word I recognized was my own name.

So I ran this through Google Translation and here's a rough translation about what the article said regarding 'I DREAMT OF SOMEONE DREAMING OF ME', my contribution to the omnibus film.

Off to Tallinn (Estonia) for the 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZEROscreening!

I'll be flying off to Estonia in a couple of hours. (by the time you're reading this, I'm probably already on the plane).

A month ago, I was invited to participate in the 60 SECONDS OF SOLITUDE IN YEAR ZERO omnibus project with a group of directors from all over the world. Most other directors involved in this are world-famous masters like Naomi Kawase, Park Chan Wook, Amir Naderi, Shinji Aoyama, Kim Ji-Woon, Tom Tywker, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Brillante Mendoza and many others (see full list of directors). Being able to participate in this project with filmmakers whose works have inspired me so much is quite an honour, and also rather humbling. (I'm listed as a representative for both Malaysia and Japan, the other filmmaker representing Malaysia is my regular collaborator Woo Ming Jin).

Each director is supposed to make a 1-minute short film, so that when all our contributions are put together, it becomes a (hopefully awesome) one-hour omnibus film.

And there will only be ONE screening for this omnibus film, in Tallin, on the 22nd of December.

Walking the green carpet at Tokyo International Film Festival 2011

Yesterday afternoon was the opening of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2011.

Like last year, I got to walk the green carpet again. Awesome!

VCinema interviews Kiki Sugino. She thinks I should be an actor. (for my looks, I guess)

VCinema had just posted up Marc Saint-Cyr's interview with Kiki Sugino (actress and producer of my short film Exhalation) regarding both our collaboration and also HOSPITALITE by Koji Fukada, which she also produced and acted.

My short films INHALATION and EXHALATION are opening and closing films of InDPanda Short Film Festival

The InDPanda International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong is happening from the 5th to the 25th of August. My short film, INHALATION (last screened at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico few days ago. You may remember that I wrote a message about the Bersih 2.0 rally to the audiences) will be part of its opening program on the 5th of August.

Video: Seru (Resurrection) Q & A session with Woo Ming Jin at Puchon International Fantastic Film Fest

Aside for the NETWORK OF ASIAN FANTASTIC FILMS project market that Ming Jin and I was attending. Ming Jin was also at Puchon International Film Fest for the screening of the film SERU (known as RESURRECTION outside Malaysia), which was making its second festival screening after Udine Far East Film Festival back in April.

Conversations between Iwai Shunji and Tan Chui Mui

An early phone call from Malaysian filmmaker Tan Chui Mui woke me up this morning. It was 7 in the morning, her assistant passed me stuff before I came to Shanghai so I could pass it to her.

So I met her 20 minutes later for breakfast. She told me she was going to have an interview of sorts for Japanese filmmaker Iwai Shunji's official website.

Like many of my Japanese film lovers of my generation, I was captivated by his works like LOVE LETTER (still a personal all-time favourite) and ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU during my youth. I fell in love with LOVE LETTER when I was 13, that was 14 years ago, and my love never wavered. It was through his influences that I make my films that some have considered visually poetic and sensitive.

Thus I followed Mui along for their meeting.

Heading off to the Shanghai International Film Festival 2011

I'm now at the Starbucks in KL International Airport, waiting for another half an hour to board the flight to Shanghai.

Film shoot of a Danish-Malaysian co-production

I was at Cherating in the past week for the film shoot of the tentatively-titled GIRL X (or GIRL IN THE WATER), a Danish-Malaysian co-production co-directed by my regular collaborator, Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin, and the Danish filmmaker Jeppe Ronde. (you might remember from here and here that I was doing some location scouting two weeks ago)

We even imported the Thai actress Sajee "FERN" Apiwong (last seen in Aditya Assarat's HI-SO) to do the main role. It was a short film, but it was a short film with sky-high ambition. After all, I wouldn't involve myself in anything less than awesome anyway.

Tuesday. 1st of June. Jeppe arrived in Malaysia at night.

Wednesday. 2nd of June. Ming Jin, Jeppe and I picked up Fern and her friend So from the airport before heading straight to Cherating.

After a looooong 4-hour car ride, we reached the location, and immediately we headed off to check out the spots.

Check out the two clips from Woo Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY

In exactly 12 hours I'll be flying off to Rotterdam. Aside from my own short film EXHALATION, I'm also there for Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY, which is the feature film spin-off of my short, INHALATION (hah). Since he can't make it to the festival, it's all up to me to handle his Q and A sessions as well after each screening. Fun.

我是个比较孤独的人-好戏网专访马来西亚新锐导演杨毅恒（我） "I'm quite a loner" - My interview in China's Mask9

Switching to Mandarin...

嗨， 朋友们。

最近接受了中国的《好戏网》访问。 他们已经将采访专题发布在《好戏网》的首页推荐。

若有兴趣的话， 请通过以下链接查看。 呵呵。

我是个比较孤独的人-好戏网专访马来西亚新锐导演杨毅恒

问的问题很仔细，很深奥， 我喜欢。 但是也必须用一点时间思考了才能好好的回答他们。

跟你们分享该文章的摘录。

THE TIGER FACTORY receives Jury Special Mention at Tokyo International Film Festival

The Tokyo International Film Festival ended yesterday (... or two days ago, since it's 1:37am when I'm writing this).

I went to the awards ceremony and to my surprise, THE TIGER FACTORY received a Jury Special Mention for the Winds Of Asia category! Basically it happened when the jury members were presenting the Best Asian Film award to Korean filmmaker Shin Su-Won for her film PASSERBY #3, then jury member and film director Akira Ogata mentioned that the jury would like to specially mention THE TIGER FACTORY as well. So, I realized that a 'special mention' is literally, you know, a special mention.

When the 'award winners' were invited onto the stage for a photography session, not entirely sure whether someone who got a 'special mention' is considered an 'award winner', I headed off to the toilet. Then I came out and heard people calling out my name, so I went back into the hall and people were waiting for me!

So I took some photos with the winners and was whisked off to the press conference.

Me and Su-Won addressed the press and took questions.

The Tokyo International Film Fest website quoted some stuff I said. But slightly different in both the Japanese and English pages.

Catch KINGYO and a sneak peek of INHALATION at Malaysian Shorts, 20th Sept

UPDATED: This is my short film Kingyo, in its entirety

A while ago, Allan Koay the journalist once asked whether I noticed that my short films looked alike.

I disagree.

Aside from having scenes of brooding young women.



Luchino Fujisaki in KINGYO


Susan Lee in INHALATION


And regularly centering around two protagonists walking around somewhere at night, chit-chatting, and reopening old wounds etc etc.





I think each and every single one of my shorts look different!

My award-winning short film, LOVE SUICIDES now (temporarily?) online

My short film, LOVE SUICIDES (2009) has also been temporarily uploaded online last month as part of Brazil's Fluxus 2010 - International Film Festival on the Internet, so I decided to allow the folks at GUA to host the short for a while as well.

THE TIGER FACTORY trailer

This teaser was also posted on Twitch and the official Directors' Fortnight website.

Here's some info of the film:

Behind a scene of THE TIGER FACTORY

This was shot on the 6th of March (my birthday!), during the 4th day of THE TIGER FACTORY shoot. Pang the Sound Guy had to play a minor role, so it was up to the director Woo Ming Jin himself to carry the boom mic.



Making films in Malaysia, you kinda have to do everything.

(another 2 hours before I head off to Narita Airport)

THE TIGER FACTORY goes to Cannes Film Festival

Dear all,

The past two days had been a blur. Woo Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY, which I produced and co-wrote, had been selected for The Directors' Fortnight section in next month's Cannes Film Festival.

My acceptance speech for WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER's Cinemanila International Film Fest special mention

Woman On Fire Looks For Water

This happened a few days ago, WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER (feature film directed by Woo Ming Jin, produced and edited by me) received a special mention at the Cinemanila International Film Festival under the Southeast Asian Competition. This year's a particularly strong year for Malaysia, the best Southeast Asian film went to the late Yasmin Ahmad's Talentime and the best short film went to Focal Point, a Malaysian short film by Iranian filmmakers Alireza Khatami and Ali Seifourri.