My short film, KINGYO goes to the 66th Venice Film Festival

Rukino Fujisaki and Takao Kawaguchi in KINGYO


I knew about this a few days ago, but now the line-up's for the Corto Cortissimo (international competition of short films) of the 66th Venice Film Festival is officially out, I can finally announce it myself too.

My short film, KINGYO, will be making its world premiere at the 66th Venice Film Festival next month. To be in the oldest and one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world is an honour beyond my wildest dreams. Of course, this would never have happened without the cast and crew of KINGYO, thanks, guys. Some of us will be going to Venice.

Arriving at Seoul

Reached Seoul this morning. Took a bus to the service apartment booked for us. Then headed off to the Kofic (Korean Film Commission) offices at 1pm.

It was raining.

That's the Nandaemun, located in the heart of Seoul.

Heading to Seoul for WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER post-production

I was sifting through the photos I took with my old camera when I found a number of production photos from WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, a feature-length film I produced earlier this year. The film's written and directed by Woo Ming Jin.

This film, financed by the Asian Cinema Fund and the Hubert Bals Fund, was shot back in March at Kuala Selangor, and after returning to Malaysia last Monday, I've spent quite a number of days finalizing its edit with Ming Jin. We will be bringing the entire film to Korea tonight for the final stages of its post-production, like colour correction and film transfer.

The film shoot lasted for nearly two weeks, and because it was quite hectic, I didn't really snap any photos most of the time.

Genius kids make me feel puny

Sorry for the lack of updates since I came back to Malaysia, been really busy with stuff. And I feel demotivated since internet connection here's light ears slower than the one I had in Tokyo, have difficulties uploading photos, let alone videos!

Anyway, I was at the first day of the Klang Creative Fest 2009 yesterday because there was a screening of a couple of films I was involved in, like KURUS and THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, and after that I presented my short films, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (which just got invited to next month's Calgary Film Festival, I'm surprised it still has festival life!) my little-seen experimental video essay FLEETING IMAGES (I decided to take it out cos it got invited for competition at next month's Singapore Short Film Festival), LOVE SUICIDES (gonna be in competition at next month's Split International Film Fest in Croatia) and then AFTERNOON RIVER, which was shot in Klang back in April and was really commissioned for the Creative Fest. In the end I decided to throw in my Groundhog Day-influenced romantic comedy 3PM because I wanted my screening to end on a lighter note, and people were influenced about my Japanese works (I didn't screen Kingyo for reasons I will explain in a few days)

But prior to my screening, I was walking about the fest, and saw many things that humbled me. Like genius kid painters.

Presenting my short films on 8th of August (Saturday)

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).

Some stills from my new short film THE WHITE FLOWER

The shoot for THE WHITE FLOWER ended around 12:30am this morning. I borrowed my friend Zhi Feng's house for the shoot. Everything was so hectic that I forgot to whip out my own camera until we were about to finish things.

Rest in peace, Ah Teong

The second day of the The White Flower shoot went on smoothly. I managed to wrap things up half past midnight. I will write about that later.

I came home just now and received a MSN message from my dad that Uncle Martin, the husband of my dad's sister (I called him 'Ah Teong', which was from the Teochew dialect), had just passed away this morning from cancer.

THE WHITE FLOWER shoot - Day 1

The cast and crew of THE WHITE FLOWER on top of the Futtsu Viewpoint structure. From left to right: Niklas the cinematographer, Zhu Dan the actress, me, Toro Inamura the actor, Kong the assistant director/ reluctant actor

31st of July. Principal photography for my short film, THE WHITE FLOWER (mentioned in my previous post) began.

Preparing a new short film, THE WHITE FLOWER

(Photo by Martha K)

I'm flying back to Malaysia next Monday (3rd of August), and thus ends the dream-like 3rd session of my stay in Japan. Long have my Finnish friend Niklas and I have spoken about working on a project together, in fact, when we went to explore the abandoned ruins in Sagamiko back in May, our true intention was location scouting.

Rest in peace, Yasmin Ahmad

(photo from Yasmin's flickr account)

Yasmin Ahmad has passed away.

Quick thoughts on BMW Shorties 2009's finalists

(UPDATED 26th of July, 2009: Yasmin Ahmad has passed away. Rest in peace.)

I received a DVD of this year's BMW Shorties finalists two days ago because I was asked to voice my thoughts on the films. I watched them yesterday evening and gave BMW Shorties' Seet Heng some brief commentary, the original entry is posted here on the BMW Shorties website.

The shotgun-carrying Chinese lady... acts

Two weeks ago I wrote about how I helped Zhu Dan, the shotgun-wielding Chinese lady, secure an acting role in a short film by my Thai friend Kong. (who will be adapting a short story by occasional Guestblogger Justin later this year, produced by my KINGYO producing partner Maiko, with the help of some of my crew members as well)



Yesterday afternoon, Kong, who is now editing his film, needed to do some re-shoots of some scenes with Zhu Dan, thus they managed to re-enact the exact same shots from last month. Yes, the photo above, and the videos below, are shot a little more than a month apart (photo above taken on the 20th of June 2009, videos below taken on the 22nd of July 2009). Bet you can't see any differences at all!

LOVE SUICIDES in competition at the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte

I've never mentioned this earlier because their website is only in Italian and I wasn't sure about the details.

But I was emailed earlier that LOVE SUICIDES will be screening at the Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Arte in Bergamo, Italy today. The film is one of the 18 short films around the world selected for competition under the Sottoventi category (PDF of the entire line-up). Once again, I'm honoured.

I hope the screening will go well!

LOVE SUICIDES will also be screening at some other European festivals over the next few months, you'll be hearing about it here.

Visiting Tokyo DisneySea

I had slightly more than 2 hours of sleep before I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and prepared for my first ever trip to Tokyo DisneySea.

Prior to the opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland, I always felt childishly gleeful that I could brag about having visited every single Disney theme park in the world:

Cure Rubbish, band name or manifesto?

When I walked past the NHK Broadcasting Centerbuilding at Shibuya last Wednesday night, I saw a band setting up for a performance.

There was a sign next to them, and the words 'CURE RUBBISH'.

I was a dino dork

The first time I went to Ueno Park was last November, when autumn's touch had infused upon it the colours of red and gold. (Not to be narcissistic, but I did take some bloody good photos that time) What left the most impression then were the wilted lotuses at the Lotus Pond (part of the Shinobazu Pond).

She must've felt out of place watching The Galaxy Girls Club

Last Saturday, when I went off to Akihabara to buy some blank DVDs, I happened upon a live event at the Live Park in Akiba (which, to the uninitiated, is not a real park, but the first floor of the Sato Musen electric store, opened earlier this year for numerous mini-concerts and live events, I heard mostly to convince authorities to reopen Akihabara's 'Pedestrian's Paradise' that had been closed since last year's Akihabara Massacre)

Mitama Matsuri at Yasukuni Shrine 2009

(UPDATE: Check out the photos and videos of MITAMA MATSURI 2010 too if you like this post)

I went to the Mitama Matsuri (Soul Festival) at the Yasukuni Shrine yesterday. It is a festival that honours the dead.

Sichuan Hot Pot... in a rice cooker

Last night was the last night of Steve's visit in Tokyo. My friends from China, Yang Yang and Zifeng invited both of us to have the much famous Sichuan (or Szechuan) "ma la" (numb and spicy) hot pot over at Zifeng's place. The meal was prepared by the chick, Echo (or Ecco, not sure), who's from Chengdu, Sichuan.



Great meal!

Hozuki Ichii (Ground Cherry Pod Fair) at Senso-ji 2009

The last time I went to Senso-ji at Asakusa was nearly two months ago, for the Sanja Matsuri (check out the breathlessly evocative photos I've taken of the festival here).

When I went there again yesterday, they were having the Hozuki Ichi (Ground Cherry Pod Fair), in which hundreds of street stalls were set up to sell ground cherry pods and wind chimes.