Returned to Tokyo last night.
Prior to that, I was, as usual, in a two-day film shoot on the 4th and 5th of September. (yes, I'm always shooting something in Malaysia just before I return to Tokyo, this sense of urgency adds more to my desperation, and desperation leads to more creativity).
Assistant cinematographer Kenny Chua had posted a number of great stills of our epic production.
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.
Back in June, I was involved in a Danish-Malaysian short film co-production tentatively titled GIRL IN THE WATER. (read about the film shoot here and here)
One of the icons of Kuala Lumpur that I probably never heard of until yesterday (yes, I'm embarrassed). I have returned briefly from Japan, my high school friends, Woan Foong (she's the composer of my short films, notably Inhalation and Exhalation, based in the States for the past few years), and Yuan Yue (based in Singapore since 3 months ago), were also back in Malaysia for a short while, so we went to the Yut Kee Coffee Shop for lunch.
A day before I saw Peter Chan's Wu Xia last Sunday, I was having dinner with a bunch of other filmmakers. AT THE END OF DAYBREAK director Ho Yuhang, who had seen the film, said this:
"Wu Xia is sort of like a remake of a famous film by a Canadian director, but I won't tell you which one since it'll spoil you."
Almost a year ago, I mentioned about shooting a 1-minute epic here and here, and ended this:
We finished the shoot almost by midnight. By having such a long and ardous shoot with a child actress, it's most possible I'll be accused of child labour. In fact, because it's supposed to be an epic compressed into a single minute, it was one of the toughest and most challenging shoots I've ever endured.
Yet I soldiered on, and the end product is most probably awesome.
If it's really awesome, you'll be seeing it soon.
If not, well, I'll probably just pretend that this shoot never happened.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I went to Chung Hwa International High School on Friday evening to attend a high school play starring TIGER FACTORY lead actress Moon Lai's younger brother, Jack. You don't get invited to high school plays everyday.
It's not everyday that you get invited to attend a high school play, so when Moon Lai (THE TIGER FACTORY's lead actress) told me about her younger brother's musical play, I was intrigued to go. (I will write about the play in my next post.)
It took me a while, but I bought the edmundyeo.com domain three days ago. The blog has finally completed its transition to this new domain few moments earlier, so I thought it's time to make this official announcement.
I'll write about the series in its entirety when I'm free enough. After all, the Harry Potter film series was something I viewed with cynicism at first, before becoming something I gradually loved. (I stopped reading the books after Book 5) Perhaps because it's finally ended, its inevitable absence makes the heart grows fonder.
Anyway, I thought that Snape's flashback was the highlight of the film. Alan Rickman's sublime performance, for his unforgettable character, it was a great way to send him off.
And the following exchange was my favourite moment in my favourite scene of the entire film.
Dumbledore: Lily... after all this time?
Snape: Always.
Somehow the exchange lingered in my mind. Perhaps it was the context, or the performance, the haunting music, the way Rickman enunciated his lines as Snape, perhaps it was the previous shot of Snape holding a dead Lily Potter in his arms crying, perhaps it was a little bit of everything. Perhaps I'm just a softie.
Due to the fact that I was unable to make my trip to Mexico, the festival staff members asked whether I would like them to help me pass a message to the audience after the screening of my film. So I wrote them the following:
I've already returned to Tokyo yesterday afternoon.
Ultimately, Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFAN) 2011 had been a fun festival for me, to be able to hang out with old friends, and then meeting up with new ones. Great food, interesting films and the like.
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.
Yesterday, I took a morning flight to Seoul to attend the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. Ming Jin's new project THE FORGIVEN has been selected for this edition's NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films). NAFF is a project market, like Hong Kong's HAF, which selects projects in development by filmmakers and allow them to pitch to possible co-producers and financiers in one-on-one meetings. I'm attached to the project as producer.
As usual, I didn't sleep the night before because it's a morning flight and I had to take a 5am train to the Tokyo City Air Terminal to catch a bus to Narita Airport. The journey to Narita, as usual, is always more soul-sapping than the flight.
The flight, however, was wondrous since I got bumped up to business class.