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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

How KINGYO actress Luchino Fujisaki took Venice Film Fest by storm

UPDATED 13th Nov, 2016: This is my short film Kingyo, in its entirety





Despite enduring some of the worst crises in recent memory (the untimely demises of two hard disks in mere weeks, losing some raw data of my short films, even the new, unreleased ones like AFTERNOON RIVER), I have SURVIVED (re-edited AFTERNOON RIVER from scratch, now in the midst of completing my newest, EVENING SKY). So of course I'm in a better mood, though I'm still disconnected from the rest of the world to get my things done.

I will now continue my recount of the Venice Film Festival.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

The KINGYO screening at the Venice Film Festival

Lots of distractions had occurred in the past two days. My hard disk died suddenly, and I lost a couple of short films I made since KINGYO (as in, AFTERNOON RIVER, 3PM, and bits and pieces of EVENING SKY that I've just edited). Since my backup had already died couple of weeks earlier, I've pretty much lost two hard disks in a space of two weeks. Can't exactly say that I'm in the best of moods, but I will be hiding at home re-editing AFTERNOON RIVER (with its DVD as reference), familiarizing myself with Adobe Premiere Pro again. I wanted to weep but my eyes had gone too dry.

So I'll recount the KINGYO screening at the Venice Film Festival back on the 7th of September. Wow, has it been 18 days already?

Thursday, September 24, 2009

My newest short film EVENING SKY is a pseudo-sequel of SLOVAK SLING and AFTERNOON RIVER

It all started as a joke. I was on MSN talking to my regular cinematographer Lesly (he shot all my Malaysian short films like CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, LOVE SUICIDES and the still-unreleased AFTERNOON RIVER) just days before I flew off to the Venice Film Festival. We were discussing the possibilities of shooting another short film after Venice, and before I return to Tokyo (on the 22nd of September, I came back to Tokyo yesterday).

I thought it would be difficult, since, after Venice, I would have to rush off to the Singapore Short Film Festival, and after I return from Singapore on the 20th of September, I would only have ONE DAY before flying off to Tokyo again.

Lesly said that one day's doable, considering that AFTERNOON RIVER was made under similar circumstances (shot that on the 11th of April, also one day before returning to Tokyo).

So I was like "sure, we can make an AFTERNOON RIVER sequel or something, or a spin-off, like following the point of view of the guy who kept on calling Grace in AFTERNOON RIVER." (in AFTERNOON RIVER, the character played by Grace was constantly ignoring phone calls from an unknown caller, until she finally answers it towards the end of the film and utters the only line of the film). And since I don't like to repeat my tricks, while KINGYO is entirely in split screens, I will go for 'DUAL SCREEN' with this! Use two TVs or screens to play AFTERNOON RIVER and the companion piece side by side and the events will actually synchronize with one another!!!"

Friday, September 18, 2009

My experimental video FLEETING IMAGES premieres simultaneously at Singapore Short Film Festival and CON-CAN Movie Festival

Nicole Tan AKA Nicolekiss in FLEETING IMAGES


I never really expected this to happen, but the experimental video I assembled last year, FLEETING IMAGES, is finally making its international premiere simultaneously at two film festivals on the 18th of September. One is the 5th Singapore Short Film Festival (where it's selected for competition), the other is the Tokyo-based online film festival, CON-CAN Movie Festival.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

LOVE SUICIDES competing at the Split International Film Festival... today

Erica sits by the sea


There are actually five different film festivals playing my short films this month, now that Venice Film Fest is over, there are still four more.

At this very moment, my short, LOVE SUICIDES, is supposed to be playing at the Split International Film Festival in Croatia, where it was selected for competition. Hopefully the screening will go on smoothly.

Suddenly felt that I should have gone straight to Croatia from Venice to attend this festival. Never thought of it earlier. However, I will be going to the Singapore Short Film Fest over the weekend. Would be nice to see some old friends again. Or hearing the voices of old friends telling me they're too busy to meet me.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Venetian waters

Actually, I didn't take that many photos of Venice compared to the others in my group. I was too, ah, busy. Nonetheless, I have taken some videos, and for this post, I will share with you photos and videos of the Venetian waters. Frankly, unlike my team, I never really had the time to explore Venice much as I was in the festival most of the time, doing interviews with the Japanese press. The film festival is held on the Lido, which is a separate island.

I relished the small moments when I got to see some parts of Venice, parts of something so much bigger. When I return again, I will definitely explore more.

But I'll start with a photo of the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, which we stopped by on our way to Venice.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

ANG LEE!!!!!!!

Just reached Tokyo. Only staying for a night. Flying back to Malaysia tomorrow morning. Next stop, Singapore Short Film Festival, where my little-seen experimental video FLEETING IMAGES is competing.

11th of September. Didn't go anywhere during my last day at the Venice Film Festival. Wanted to explore Venice with the rest of the KINGYO team, but there were screenings to go to, things to settle, people to talk to, so I ended up staying in the festival instead.

The last film screening I went to was THE HOLE, because it's not everyday you get to see a 3D film in a film festival, let alone the Venice Film Festival. I won't comment much on the film itself, but before the film started, I was already excited because I spotted Ang Lee.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Venice Premiere (The Star, 9th of September 2009)

Internet access is limited (I only get it at the film festival place, not my hotel), so haven't been giving people as many updates as I wanted.

One more hour before the second KINGYO screening in Venice. My two actresses, Luchino Fujisaki and Amane Kudo had just arrived last night, so they'll be present for today's screening. Hope the reception will be as warm as the one I got two nights ago.

I'm on THE STAR today as well, in an article written by Allan Koay. I like the photo of myself because I didn't look fat. (it helped that it was a self-portrait)

Monday, September 07, 2009

Arriving at the Venice Film Festival

Yup, I'm in Venice now. Screening of Kingyo is only 5 hours away. I'm a little excited.

Took a lot of videos yesterday, but alas, not that many photos. Will post videos when I return to Tokyo.

Here are some photos of me, Maiko the Producer and Rinto the Technical Producer / Postproduction Technician in the water taxi from the airport to Venice's Lido, where the film festival is held.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Off to Venice! Here's a cute baby!

I'm heading off to the airport this evening. It's a 7pm flight, but I'll be busy packing and buying stuff I need, so doubt I'll be updating the blog until I reach Venice.

Here's a cute baby girl I met last Saturday, she seemed to be a major computer fan when I was in a restaurant, and I noticed her peering over my shoulder at the Macbook i was borrowing from Sebastian to do some video editing. Of course, like any normal manly men, seeing such a cute baby immediately made me squeal "eeeeeee, soooo cute!", so I took out my camera and snapped photos of her. I would like to thank the baby's dad for asking her to smile for the photo shoot.

Friday, September 04, 2009

Sneak preview: kingyo's opening scenes

She (Rukino Fujisaki) looks at the goldfish


One more day before I head off to Venice. Here's a sneak preview of the opening scenes from my short film, KINGYO.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Food Porn at BE. SWEET ON.

Yes, it's National Day. Merdeka. Merdeka. But I'll talk about that later.

For now I would like to talk about this BE. SWEET ON. dessert shop I visited on my last night at Seoul. Despite having returned from Seoul for a week, I am haunted by memories of its sublime dessert.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Visiting Namdaemun Market and Insadong on my last day in Seoul

Eating blissfully


22nd of August. Saturday. My last day in Seoul. Decided to do some sightseeing instead of catching some films at CINDI.

The first place I went to was the Namdaemun market, which reminded me of Petaling Street.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival 2009 party (... or one of them)

One more day left in Seoul.

Yesterday was my last day in KOFIC lab. Mr. Oh has finished the colour correction and we also got ourselves some nifty end credits too. Once I return to Malaysia tomorrow, Ming Jin will be working on the sound mixing with Soundwave, then the film transfer. Too bad I won't be able to see all those. But I'll be excited to see WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER having its world premiere at October's Pusan International Film Festival in glorious 35mm. *sob*

Thursday, August 20, 2009

An Interview with Justin Isis


Justin Isis lacks abdominal definition


For me, literature should be as exciting and energising as pop music. I am now 37 years of age, and of a generation for whom pop music was both a personal journey of discovery and something that has always been there. I suppose that for those younger than me, at least the 'has always been there' part of this description must hold, if not all of it. It has been a source of puzzlement to me, therefore, that the sensibility of pop music – all that is best about it in spontaneity, daring and role-play – somehow has not managed to permeate the world of literature. I don't mean this in any superficial sense, that authors should all start wearing shades and writing in American hipster slang (by golly!). No, literature need not relinquish any intellectual depth by learning from pop music – it can even gain some.

Because, for me, interests in literature and pop music were equivalent and intertwined, when I first started having work published, I thought about the entire project through a pop music sensibility. My first collection,
The Nightmare Exhibition, was a 'concept album', in which the title story provided a meta-narrative for the other stories. This, for me, was only the start, or so I thought, until I found that my 'concept albums' were being broken up by publishers who would reject and accept stories with no regard for the song-cycles to which they belonged, who did not care for my pretentious collection titles and who gave me little or no control over artistic presentation.

I had thought that any artistic path should resemble that described by David Bowie in the song Star:

I could play a wild mutation as a rock'n'roll star.

However, some years of the oblivious plodding attitudes prevalent in the world of publishing made me despair of such a thing. There was no David Bowie of literature.

This could be a long story, but I'll cut it short. Justin Isis got in touch with me over the Internet, after reading an online interview of mine, and my faith in literature has become invigorated, precisely because he is a writer who understands the lack of vision in literature as it currently exists. He is also a writer quite capable of the wild mutations that make pop music, at its best, so vital and exciting.

Not long ago, an e-mail from Justin Isis to myself contained the following:


I feel like writing is at least twenty or thirty years behind music... Music seems to have reached a total point of convergence, where genre doesn't really matter anymore. Writing still seems very genre stratified. I also feel like writing is really lagging behind in using technology. I don't mean stupid shit like the Kindle or e-books or whatever, but I mean actual programs for generating text or producing fiction, or database-programs that could be used for combining or mashing up texts based on common words or phrases. If you Google literary mashups, there is like nothing serious that comes up. I really can't believe that I may be the only person that gives a
shit about this.

I really feel like writing now has the potential to be a thousand times better than writing has been in the past. It should be, but no one seems to be doing anything about it. I feel like Susuki is properly "of its time" in that it feels to me like where writing should realistically be now, rather than everyone who is writing like it was still fifty years ago.


It was after reading this that I decided that I must interview Justin Isis, and put that interview out there (on here). And that is what I have done. I hope you find the results exciting and arousing.

-Quentin S. Crisp

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

大馬新晉導演殺進威尼斯影展 (China Press, 18/8/2009)

She (Rukino Fujisaki) looks at the goldfish


Here's an article from China Press. Didn't get to scan it, but link to original article is here. During the phone interview I was asked whether I was representing Japan at the festival, since Kingyo's a Japanese production, but I actually listed the film as a Japanese-Malaysian co-production. Rest of the blog post will be written in Chinese again.

哈罗, 我是杨毅恒。 今天和大家分享来自中国报的访问报道。

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

《金鱼》入围威尼斯影展短片单元。 杨毅恒: “像到了‘神坛’” (Sin Chew Daily, 15/8/2009)

I was on Sin Chew Daily last Saturday, didn't know about it until some friends told me via Facebook.

The article, which was about KINGYO going to next month's Venice Film Festival, is entirely in Chinese. But I was quoted as saying that "a friend of mine mentioned that going to Venice is like going to a 'Pantheon'." (actually I was quoting an interview article I read from my friend, Singaporean filmmaker Eva Tang 邓宝翠" (in 2002, she was the first Singaporean filmmaker in history to get her short film into Venice Film Festival, we met in at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year)

I'll include the entire article below. (The rest of this blog post will be written in Chinese...)



嗯, 大家好, 我就是杨毅恒。 这部落平时是用英文来写的, (因为自己的中文文笔蛮乱七八糟的)。 但是既然在下的短片“金鱼”入围威尼斯短片单元这好消息是中文报纸刊登的, 我就用中文来跟会对中文的读者们打个招呼以及分享这文章吧。

(这文章好像是上个星期六刊登的。 )

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Demonstration in front of Hongik University on Korean Liberation Day

Went to the Hongdae area again yesterday for the Seoul Fringe Festival. I'll post up videos of some of the nicer singing performances I saw when I return from Seoul (Youtube has disabled commenting and video uploading for Korean users).

It was the Korean Liberation Day, and I thought I saw a demonstration in front of the Hongik University. In this video, you'll see me posing handsomely around the 40-second mark.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Colour grading WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER and exploring Samcheong-dong

Third day in Seoul. Finally began work on the colour grading of WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER in the Digital Intermediate Lab in KOFIC. Here's Ming Jin and I 'posing' with our main actor Chung Kok Keong in the lab.

Friday, August 14, 2009