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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 2)

Came back from Dubai last night, slept through most of the entire flight. It's a fun feeling.

I'm now going to continue from my previous post, Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 1), by listing out the rest of the films I caught in the Dubai Film Fest, along with some anecdotes if I have any.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Films I saw at Dubai International Film Festival 2011 (Part 1)

This is my last night in Dubai. The past week had been a blur. I didn't get to camwhore that much. Just one photo at the red carpet of a red carpet event that I didn't really attend.

Monday, December 05, 2011

My new short LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER having world premiere at Dubai International Film Festival 2011

So... I'm announcing the world premiere of my latest short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER less than a week before it is happening at this year's Dubai International Film Festival. My publicity skills have gone down the drains. It's hard, juggling my responsibility as a filmmaker, creator, producer and, er, self-promoter. In an ideal world, someone else would have been promoting me instead of me doing all these myself, but the world isn't ideal, and my films are probably not the type that people would jump in to promote, so... there you go.

I have a very nice poster though.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

4 of my short films online now thanks to Yxine Film Fest's Mini-Focus on me.

The YxineFF is an annual online short film festival that focuses mostly on Vietnamese short films, and also some South East Asian ones.

I met its founder Marcus Manh Cuong Vu at last year's Hamburg International Film Festival, when he moderated the question and answer for THE TIGER FACTORY screening (Ming Jin the director couldn't go, so I went on his behalf as the immensely cute producer). He also later did a short interview with me about Malaysian Independent Cinema and other stuff.

I'm very honoured that this year's Yxine Film Festival is doing a mini-focus on me. For a temporary amount of time, four of my previous short films are uploaded online for the viewing pleasure of audiences, all of them except INHALATION are actually loose adaptations of Yasunari Kawabata's works.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Off to Taipei for the Golden Horse Film & TV Film Project Promotion (FTPP)

It's 6:07am while I'm writing this. In a few hours, I will be hopping onto a bus to Narita Airport and catch the flight to Taipei for the Golden Horse Film & TV Film Project Promotion (FTTP), a project market similar to the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) in March, or the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) in July.

Characteristic of me, I have yet to sleep at all. I guess I wanted a better sleep in the plane.

I'm shopping a feature film project of mine called REINCARNATED DREAMS OF DEER, which I've spent the last few months in seclusion trying to write (aside from the span of time during Tokyo Film Festival, I was really just writing this screenplay since I came back to Tokyo in September). If everything comes together, this would become my debut feature-length film.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Yurakucho Winter Illumination

Was at Yurakucho just now for dinner when I ran into a huge crowd, and saw a group of women singing on a makeshift stage. I realized that it was the opening ceremony for the Winter Illumination.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Jimbocho, treasure trove for book lovers!

When I went to Jimbocho almost two weeks ago, towards the end of the Tokyo Film Festival. A book festival was being held, so there were numerous stalls at the streets, selling books.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

'LADYBIRD'S TEARS' by Kong Pahurak wins award at Sichuan TV Festival

zhu dan in Ladybird's Tears


You probably don't remember Ladybird's Tears, an experimental short film directed and narrated by Kong Pahurak (who was one of the two cinematographers of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, my last short). I've only mentioned it once, last year in April, before it made its world premiere at the Singapore Film Fest 2010.

In January 2010, while editing EXHALATION (... argh, I thought I wouldn't be talking about it again), i saw the footage of Kong's unfinished sci-fi short film starring my friend Zhu Dan (pictured above), and decided to salvage it by rewriting and editing the thing. I rearranged the narrative, Kong and I then had some major brainstorming sessions, together we wrote his voiceover narration (I wrote in English, he translated it to Thai), it became a somewhat meta-film about a filmmaker ruminating over an unfinished sci-fi short film. It felt like a jamming session that took us a few days to complete (or was it a week?).

Two days ago, Kong received an email notification from the 2011 (11th) Sichuan TV Festival that Ladybird's Tears had won a Special Jury Award for Experimental Film. I think neither of us can make our way to the award ceremony next week to pick up the award, I'll be curious to see how the trophy will look like. I'm happy that Kong's film is getting some recognition!

Here is a mini-review of Ladybird's Tears (along with my Love Suicides and Kingyo) at Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal.

EXHALATION (and MAGIC AND LOSS) begins theatrical run in Cinema Rosa, Ikebukuro

Tokyo Film Festival 2011 ended exactly a week ago, but I continued promoting EXHALATION with Kiki.

Just two days after Tokyo Film Fest's closing ceremony, on the evening of November 1st, Kiki and I presented EXHALATION to a group of students at a class in Waseda University taught by WINDS OF ASIA director Kenji Ishizaka. (a year ago, I presented LOVE SUICIDES and INHALATION to the same class).

It was fun!

Waseda Festival 2011

It's Sunday. Thought it would be a nice and quiet day for me to head to the editing lab and continue editing my top secret one-minute long epic project.

When I woke up, I finished watching the first episode of Torchwood that I dozed off watching the night before (nothing to do with the quality of the show, I was tired). There was a power outage at my place scheduled from 10am to 3pm, figured it was a good time to leave once the power went out.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Video: KIKI SUGINO: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA press conference

Was at the KIKI SUGINO: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA press conference yesterday. I'm part of the session with Kiki and BREATHLESS filmmaker Yang Ik June (who acted in Lim Kah Wai's MAGIC AND LOSS and was involved in the omnibus film where Kiki made her acting debut)

The entire video is here.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Introducing EXHALATION with actress/producer Kiki Sugino before its Tokyo International Film Fest screening


Kiki and I, after the EXHALATION screening at Tokyo International Film Festival


My short film EXHALATION was screened on the 23rd of October, Sunday at the Tokyo International Film Festival. I was considered an 'opening act' for Lim Kah Wai's feature film MAGIC AND LOSS. This is me, trying to act like a rock star.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Jackie Chan and Japanese PM

After walking the lengthy green carpet, we finally entered the Roppongi Hills cinema for the opening ceremony. (the green carpet event lasted for 2 hours, a blessing, actually, without the delay from the rain, it would have been 4 hours! So after walking the carpet, I still had time to head off to a quickie lunch nearby before attending the ceremony)

I was surprised that Jackie Chan was here!

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!

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Death of an old classmate

A few days ago, I noticed a Facebook status of an ex-secondary school classmate.

He wrote (in Chinese):
'Missing a good friend, Yan Chee Seong'

I suddenly realized that it's exactly been ten years since a classmate of mine died in a horrendous car accident when I was in Form 5. That was my last year in secondary school. It was just a month before SPM (to non-Malaysian readers: that's the final government exams we had to take to finish secondary school).

For some people, ten years can feel like yesterday, but for me, more and more, time is turning into something more languid, even ten months ago felt like years, thus ten years felt like an entire lifetime ago. Yet I remembered some details.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

EXHALATION screening at Malaysian Shorts (Oct 19, Help University)

Yep, Malaysian audiences can finally check out my short film, EXHALATION, exactly a week before its screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

EXHALATION will be one of the ten short films screened on the Oct 17th edition of Malaysian Shorts in Help University.

More info about the line-up:

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Karayuki-san: The forgotten Japanese prostitution era






Been in seclusion the past week to write my screenplay. It's not an easy one to write, so it's been taking a lot of my energies. I have kinda cut myself away from the rest of the world, spending almost every night in McDonald's.

There's no point telling you all that much about it since it's still in its infancy.

Sometimes, I do some heavy researches while I prepare a script (or a shoot). Do a film marathon that could help inspire me, go through books, scour through the net, do some email interviews etc. A lot of excavation is needed.

Back in July, when I started developing the idea for my screenplay, I suddenly stumbled upon a piece of information that actually rocked my world.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The death of a great American bookstore

I read this CNN article, 'The death and life of a great American bookstore' two weeks ago (it's a eulogy for Borders). These few paragraphs summed up best how I feel about a bookstore.