Edmund Yeo

CONTINUED FROM PART 1 July Pia Film Festival and Skip City D-Cinema Movie Festival happened. One in Tokyo, the other in Saitama. I was happy to see Kazue Fukiishi at the premiere of Gegege Nyobo in Pia. She didn't see me, though.

It is 5:39am, 31st of December, 2010 as I am writing this. Less than 18 hours left for the year. I guess I'll just take a bit of time to reflect on the past year and make some sense out of it. My life is probably defined now, by my filmmaking career. Ever since I started actually directing in 2008, I had derived a lot of joy from creativity, to be surrounded by like-minded people, to indulge myself in films, to further my own craft. My last tweet was laced with some sort of irony-induced nostalgia.

It's quite a contrast, a year ago and today. A year ago, I had just finished the EXHALATION shoot and capped an unbelievable 2009. 2010 had been an incredible year as well (I am referring only to my own filmmaking career, anything outside that is a tragedy to describe), but as I am few hours away from the last day of 2010, I realize how quiet it is ending for me. Solitude is fine, all the peace and stuff, yet to be occasionally being surrounded by like-minded people during film shoots is a warm feeling, maybe that's why I enjoy them. Before I go for a more proper year-end blog entry, I'll just share with you all a very nice performance I had the pleasure of witnessing on Christmas day, of a lady named Yadako (you can follow her on Twitter ).

I posted about a bowling game in Christmas Eve yesterday. At that time, I was trying to find an editing software for my laptop that could help me edit the videos that I shot that night. In the past, I used the Adobe Premiere Pro for PC. Edited my first few short films (Chicken Rice Mystery, Fleeting Images, Love Suicides) with it, also edited telemovies like Cinta Tiga Segi with that too. But once I switched to shooting stuff on HD, I had to use Final Cut Pro on Mac, which felt immensely more convenient. (Ming Jin's two films WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER and THE TIGER FACTORY, and my short films beginning from KINGYO, all done with Final Cut Pro) I still use a PC laptop, and I don't have Adobe Premiere Pro anymore, so I scoured the net, trying to find a good free editing software that could help me. Downloaded a few (I won't name them), but none of them seemed to be able to edit Canon 7D videos. The only good one I ended up using in the end was EDIUS, but it t

On a Christmas Eve, I had some delicious food at a place called Hana Hana in Shibuya. The food was delicious. There's this egg dish.

This concludes my Dubai International Film Fest 2010 recap. Before the closing ceremony, I was excited to meet the star of Lee Chang Dong's POETRY, Yun Jeong-Hee, seen here with her husband, the renowned pianist Paik Kun-Woo.

Beginning from the 16th of December, I was staying at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. It had a nice view of the Burj.

Okay, I'm back from Dubai, but I'll still have to give a quick recap on the very first screening of EXHALATION. So here's a quickie.

Here's Carey Mulligan, presenting Variety's International Movie Star of The Year award to Colin Firth, and also his acceptance speech, on the 13th of December, second day of the Dubai Film Fest. He's really eloquent. video page

So, I'm now at Dubai. Today, my film EXHALATION will finally have its world premiere at the Dubai Film Fest. But this will chronicle my first day in the place. Here are some pretty photos of me right before the opening ceremony on the 12th of December, courtesy of Indonesian documentary filmmaker Daniel Rudi Haryanto.

I'm now in Dubai, took numerous photos and videos. But before I give you all updates of my misadventures there, I'll do a recap of Cinemanila International Film Fest first. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I went to Cinemanila right after the Torino Film Festival/ Film Lab . 3rd of December. I arrived in Manila during the afternoon, I was picked up at the airport. I intended the festival to be one where I could rest, since the Torino schedule was so hectic. "Well, for tonight, I'll just relax, and maybe catch the SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD screening." I told Raymond, who was picking me up. His day job is actually as a TV writer. "Oh, I'm afraid you can't do it. The awards ceremony is tonight." Raymond said. "What? But today's only the second day of the festival!" I was flabbergasted. "Yes, but they wanted to get the awards out of the way first." Raymond said. So... that evening, we went to the award cere

I'm actually leaving for Dubai tonight. My short film EXHALATION is making its world premiere in the Muhr AsiaAfrica Shorts competition section at the Dubai International Film Festival.

After visiting the National Cinema Museum , I saw another group of student protesters. Dum dum dum.

Despite being slightly delayed by the student protests , the last pitching session went by pretty smoothly.

I'll take a break briefly from the Torino recaps to write about something that happened last night.

30th of November, my last day in Torino. It was an eventful day, so I'll need perhaps 3 blog entries to cover them all.

It was snowing on the morning of November 28th.

I flew to Torino on the 25th of November for the Torino Film Lab (which is part of the Torino Film Festival. 3 years ago, Ming Jin won a jury award in this festival for THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA). When I arrived, it was already dark. I had to take a bus to the city center. The journey lasted around 45 minutes.

Yup, I came back from Manila two days ago. For the past two weeks I was in Torino (Italy) and Manila for the film festivals and other stuff. The screenwriting workshop I've been attending throughout the year concluded its session in Torino (the first two rounds were in Bratislava, back in March, and Brignogan, France, back in June). Then I just headed off immediately to Cinemanila Film Fest to present INHALATION and THE TIGER FACTORY. Many photos, videos to share, many stories to tell. My computer died (again) just when I reached Torino, hence the lack of updates. Frustrating, but it had happened so often that I've grown numb. I'm leaving for Dubai on the 11th. Not a lot of time to rest from my constant flying, haha.

Almost exactly two years ago, I headed off to Yoyogi Park to look at the golden ginkgo leaves , I was unable to forget their beauty. Since then, I made a mental note to myself that I would always visit the place when the leaves were turning. When I had an appointment with someone yesterday evening, I decided to go to Yoyogi Park first. To my consternation, the sky was already turning dark at 4pm. Nonetheless, the golden ginkgo leaves were still there.

I met up with old high school friend Sebastian yesterday evening in Shinjuku (he and his family were on a family trip in Japan and dropped by in Tokyo for two nights). After we had dinner, he left and I walked off to catch the bus. As I walked past the Shinjuku Station West Exit, our conversation swirled in my mind, people from high school, those who had just gotten married, those who had just gotten engaged, previous loves, our careers in film (Sebastian works in RHYTHM AND HUES and had just made a short film called Hashshashin's Revolt , it was a valiant attempt), and the like. Perhaps time was indeed passing me by, I thought in slight melancholy. Ah, memory, a constant source of pain. It was Sunday evening, Shinjuku was characteristically crowded. Yet I walked in solitude, past the crowds of people, past lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other, past tourists mesmerized by the bustling energy of Shinjuku, past a pair of pretty twin sisters singing at the street, pa

Since my epic food poisoning last week, I continued my semi-retreat into a writing session of my screenplay. So the entire week just came and went. I just came to a realization that Nov 17, 18 and 19 are birthdays of many people I know. In fact, I have 3 different family members and relatives celebrating their birthdays on these three successive days.

I felt that something was wrong two nights ago when I was suddenly afflicted with diarrhea. What could've caused it? The onigiri I bought in a convenience store for lunch? The bento from the nice elderly couple that I've had for dinner (a favourite of mine for the past two years)? The iced chocolate I drank two hours later during a meeting? Not dwelling upon the issue, I quickly took the famed Po Chai pills . The discomfort lasted for two hours before everything subsided and I could sleep again. When I woke up yesterday, I felt a little better, and assumed that I've recovered. I took a few gulps of water, then I was overwhelmed by a strong feeling of nausea. Oh shit... was the words in my mind as I ran out of my room, hoping to reach the toilet in time. I couldn't make it.

Recently, during a Facebook chat session with some primary school friends (yes, we still keep in touch, someone was sweet enough to start a Facebook group for the class of 1996) and a certain incident started emerging from the deepest recesses of my memory.

22nd of September 2010, two days after my graduation ceremony , and 2 days before receiving news of my uncle's sudden passing . It was Mid-Autumn Festival. No mooncakes or lanterns though, just me bringing mom to Kamakura to visit the Big Buddha.

Yesterday was the Waseda Festival 2010. (read about Waseda Festival 2009 ) Not much about the fair though, since the highlight of my day was clearly this: Although I was quite amused by the folks at the Bodybuilding Club too. A group of muscular dudes were in the university campus, flexing their muscles, letting people touch them, while they hand out flyers.

The Bratislava International Film Festival begins today. My short film, AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY, will make its world premiere in competition. It is the only Asian entry among the selected short films.

Now, this is a surprise! Just received news that I won two awards at the inaugural Doi Saket International Film Festival (facebook page here ). The festival actually ended on the same day as the Tokyo International Film Fest (Oct 31st), but the folks were so busy that they didn't announce the results publicly until few moments ago. I won a Best Editing Award for KINGYO (2009).

31st of October. I headed to Roppongi to wait for the Green Carpet event prior to the closing ceremony. I was at the TIFF Movie Cafe with Prof. Ando.

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 t

The TPG meetings from the 26th to 28th of Oct went by in a blur. I think it's much more fruitful than the one two years ago, I got to meet more people, got more input for the project, it was a very educational experience. No photos though, just a photo of Ming Jin and I, with Dustin Nguyen. In between meetings.

26th of Oct. The 1st screening of INHALATION and THE TIGER FACTORY. The day began with the TPG (Tokyo Project Gathering) reception. Just like two years ago, Ming Jin and I had a project called 'THE BOOK KEEPER' in the TPG. Some changes were made since then, for example, the opening reception was held on the TIFF Movie Cafe instead of the ballroom in the 49th floor of Roppongi Hills, and that meetings of TPG had been integrated into TIFFCOM (at the 40th floor) instead of being in a separate space at the 49th floor. I elaborated a lot more about the TPG in this blog two years ago . Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang has a new project called Headshot.

Been quite behind with my updates because I've been so busy at the Tokyo Film Festival in the past few days. Both screenings of INHALATION + THE TIGER FACTORY had ended, so is the TPG (Tokyo Project Gathering) at TIFFCOM, so I have a bit more time now. (still have to head there later this afternoon to be interviewed) On the 24th of June, the Taiwanese folks had a Taiwan Cinema Party in the Tokyo Film Fest.

Yesterday was the opening of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2010. My recent Pusan Film Fest-winning short film INHALATION (which Ming Jin produced) and Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY (which I produced) are screening under the WINDS OF ASIA section. Before the green carpet event, we took photos with Vivian Hsu. I told her that I saw the short film, JULIET'S CHOICE, which she starred in at the Pusan International Film Festival (it was also under the Asian Short Film Competition). JULIET'S CHOICE was initially conceived as part of an omnibus called Juliets, and Juliets is also screening at the Tokyo International Film Fest. We walked down the green carpet. The TRON 2 folks were in front of us.

I had a strange dream.

15th of October, my last day in Pusan. A press conference was held in the morning to announce the award results.

Decided to break my recap up into two parts so it won't be too long.

Saw the video of Juliet Binoche dancing in Pusan? Anyway, I'm going to properly do a quick recap of my Pusan International Film Fest 2010 experience.

Yeah, it's not everyday that you get to share the same dance floor with an Oscar-winning actress. But there I was, last night, at the Wide Angle party in Pusan International Film Fest. Just after the screening of INHALATION. You'll spot Juliet Binoche, and my sista Kkobbi Kim (from "Breathless", who is probably the poster girl of this year's Pusan Film Fest cos she's in THREE films: MAGIC AND LOSS, ASHAMED and an anime), and also festival director Kim Dong Ho. This festival is Kim Dong Ho's swansong (he had been in charge for 15 years, since its founding). Oh, Abbas Kiarostami appeared at the 0:34 mark too. Post by Edmund Yeo .

Before I launch into my barrage of photos from the Pusan Film Fest, I'm going to post up some photos I took in Hamburg during my time there on 1st-5th Oct.

20th of September was my graduation day. My parents were here.

As I've mentioned in my previous post, my uncle, passed away early in the morning yesterday of cardiac arrest. He was 56.

I wanted to post photos of my graduation day on the 20th, or photos of me and mom hanging out at Kamakura on Mid-Autumn Festival two days ago, unfortunately I have to post about this instead. This morning I received a call from mom. My uncle, dad's youngest brother, had just passed away a few hours before dawn. Cardiac arrest. He was 56. My parents are flying back to Malaysia tomorrow, a day earlier than planned. More about this later.

Dear readers, do not be deceived by the title of this blog post. I am definitely NOT encouraging the objectifying of beautiful booth women at the this year's edition of Tokyo Game Show. Like my ' Babes of Tokyo Game Show 2008 ' post from two years ago, I am now getting up my high horse to voice my personal conflicted feelings towards the beautiful booth women of the Tokyo Game Show.

Edited this together two nights ago. The music you here in the trailer is the main theme of the short film and is composed by my now-frequent collaborator Wong Woan Foong. Cello performed by Mark Shuping. video page

Now, finally, something not about the screenings of my film. A few years ago I mentioned my teenage love for the Japanese pop group SPEED. They started in 1996, then disbanded in 2000. I was crushed. In 2008, they came back again, I was skeptical . Yet the intensity of my love for SPEED, especially lead vocalist Hiroko Shimabukuro (the tall one), was so intense that I composed silly haiku for her.

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!

(After such a long period of inactivity, I am now bombarding this blog with festival announcements, eek.) This actually started at the beginning of September, but I didn't mention it due to some, er, distractions. Anyway. a one-minute incarnation (or rather, the first scene) of my older short film, LOVE SUICIDES (2009), was one of the 25 finalists selected for FILMINUTE 2010, an international one-minute short film festival. I was a little surprised when I was informed last month by the people at the festival that the first scene of LOVE SUICIDES seemed like a 1-min film by itself! So yeah, after that I decided to extract the scene and sent them as LOVE SUICIDES: PROLOGUE. Watch it here on the Filminute website . (considering that it's only a minute long, I really don't that it'll waste that much of your time. Hah)

I mentioned in my previous post that my latest short, INHALATION, is finally making its premiere in competition at the Pusan International Film Festival on the 8th of October. Actually on the same day (but slightly later, due to timezones), INHALATION will also be opening before THE TIGER FACTORY at the Vancouver International Film Festival. And later in the month of October, INHALATION will also be playing before THE TIGER FACTORY at the Tokyo International Film Festival. INHALATION on Vancouver International Film Festival site THE TIGER FACTORY on Vancouver International Film Festival site I liked the INHALATION synopsis given on the VIFF website. An alternate version of The Tiger Factory’s narrative, compressed, stretched, and flipped, by its writer/producer.

It's not everyday that you get to plug your own SHORT FILM (!!) at the Cannes Film Festival. But I did just that with INHALATION, back in May, during the press conference of THE TIGER FACTORY, when I was asked about it by Jeremy Segay the moderator and programmer.

Marc Saint-Cyr had posted a review of THE WHITE FLOWER at J-Film Pow-Wow. Here's an excerpt: Suitably, the still photography used throughout “The White Flower” is incredibly beautiful, possessing much richness, crisp clarity and great attention to framing and lighting in every shot. In fact, viewers are likely to be doubly grateful for the slideshow-like manner in which the shots progress, as it allows them to better savor each image while seeming to magnify and expand each of the contemplative, intimate moments that comprise the film’s episodic structure. Read the full review ! THE WHITE FLOWER was recently screened at the InDPanda International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong.

me pointing at the WHITE FLOWER still Leaving from Hong Kong to Guangzhou the day after the world premiere of THE WHITE FLOWER left me Twitter-less, Facebook-less, Youtube-less and Blogger-less, hence the lack of updates. So, back to the screening of THE WHITE FLOWER. On the night of the 26th, I finally got to screen my experimental THE WHITE FLOWER to the public at the Broadway Cinematheque .

After hearing so much about the Avenue of Stars (it's modeled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame), I decided to pay a visit yesterday. I was greeted by the huge replica of the Hong Kong Film Awards statuette.

Arrived at Hong Kong two days ago, staying at an interesting hotel at Wan Chai called MINGLE BY THE PARK. Here's dad.

I arrived in Hong Kong yesterday afternoon (it's 2am when I'm writing this), the night before, Lesly the Cinematographer and Moon Lai the actress of THE TIGER FACTORY and NOW (the 1-min epic I shot last week) went to visit a horror film set.

This was actually posted on Twitch a while ago (my friends at Toronto J-Film Pow Wow covered it too ), but I've been so busy with my own shoots back in Malaysia that I didn't get around to sharing it with you guys. My experimental short, THE WHITE FLOWER, which I shot last year, is finally making its world premiere at the Hong Kong InDpanda Short Film Festival next week. To commemorate this, I cut together a trailer for the short. It's an experimental film based on Yasunari Kawabata's short story of the same title, constructed mostly with still photos like Chris Marker's LA JETEE. It's my third Kawabata adaptation after LOVE SUICIDES and KINGYO. Here's a synopsis. A young Chinese woman living in Tokyo is haunted by remnants of a forbidden relationship and a dark family past. She ends up in a sanitarium and meets a doctor conflicted between his job and his personal feelings. After being discharged, she meets a wandering Thai filmmaker contemplating

6 days have passed since I wrapped the shoot of my one-minute epic, titled 'NOW'. Spent two days editing it. It was a tough slog, so many materials I've shot, yet I had to toss most of them away to fit into the 1 minute length. Nonetheless, it was worth the challenge.

I was shooting my 1-minute epic last night. Yes, you read that right. I was making an epic short film that is 1-minute in length. It's not the easiest thing to do, hence the pained expression etched upon my movie star-like face.

I've been back in Malaysia for nearly a week. Had been putting together a video shoot for the weekend, pondering the screenplay for my feature-length script, watching movies at home (watched HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, the new KARATE KID, Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA and Herzog's THE WILD BLUE YONDER) and the cinema (well, I just got back from watching DESPICABLE ME)... and er, eating a lot of nice stuff. I don't really 'miss' Malaysian food when I'm in Tokyo. There are Malaysian restaurants in Tokyo, but I'm happy enough with my usual bentos and ramen (... or McDonald's). But now that I'm back here, I make the most out of enjoying the food here.

On the 3rd of August, I finally put the finishing touch on the music + video installation project I mentioned earlier. Tao Sha, the actress I used earlier, returned for a quick voice recording session. She was to recite a poem by Phyllis Lin Hui Yin. The past two months went by in a blur, I can't even actually remember what had happened since I came back from Brest and Brignogan. A few days of being sick, then dealing with the Masters' Thesis presentation, and finally, quickly putting together a few projects to shake off my rust and ennui (that derived from the lack of filmmaking and creative endeavours).

31st of July, Saturday, was the 2nd screening of KINGYO at the Skip City International D-Cinema Film Fest. When I reached Skip City, there was some baton twirling action going on.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Huey Ching, also a Malaysian in Japan (and a composer), proposing a collaboration. An experimental festival for live performances and all sorts of music project's coming up soon in Tokyo, she intended to merge her own music performance with videos.

27th of July, two days ago, the first screening of KINGYO was held as part of the short film competition program in the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2010. I was surprised by the amount of audiences, being a Tuesday morning and all. Mine was the last one to play, so I got to watch the other three short films, which were all really diverse in tone and genres: A fantasy black comedy, a cyberpunk samurai actioner, and a coming-of-age tale. Left the hall when KINGYO started playing, so not entirely sure of its reception. The filmmakers and cast members were all invited onto the stage after the screening to introduce themselves and what they wanted to say about their films.

On Sunday (25th of July, just a day after the opening of the Skip City Film Fest mentioned in my previous post), I headed off to the Fuji TV headquarters in Odaiba for a screening of LOVE SUICIDES. It was part of the SF7 program . SF stands for 'Student Films', seven universities participated, hence the '7'.

Went to the opening ceremony of Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2010 . My short film, KINGYO, is in competition . 10 shorts were in competition, it's supposed to be a domestic competition for Japanese shorts only, KINGYO was a Japanese short, but its director ain't a Japanese, so that makes me the token foreigner among the nominees, awesome! I was actually late, missed all of the opening speeches from the ceremony, but I arrived just in time to be introduced on-stage. When I walked into the place, the conversation between me and the staffer was like that:

Nine years ago, when I was just finishing high school, I went to Japan for a family trip. I remember being in a hotel that was known for the hot springs, but what I remember most then was the lobby, where a public service announcement poster of actress/ model Kazue Fukiishi from the fire department was pinned onto the wall. I vaguely recognized her name (few years earlier I had seen her debut feature in the TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL, a film adapted from a dating simulation... er, yeah), but I was mostly mesmerized by her beauty. That large luminous eyes peering deep into my soul, telling me to be careful not to play with fire, the slight playful smile on her face hinted that she knew secrets of me and would be a willing co-conspirator. Returning to my room, images of her lingered, and the question that haunted my mind then was... "what if I cannot see this poster again? What if, for the rest of my life, this poster would just be a fleeting image that would just fade off in my mind, a

3PM is an exercise from the cinematography class I was taking last year. I remember finishing it around the end of June. Then summer came, and I was mired into some sort of depression, which is what I am pretty much going through now. (Quite odd, it's as if I'm stuck in a time loop like the protagonist of the film.) I digress. Anyway, all my rushes (raw footages) of this film had been destroyed when my hard disk died last year (just a few weeks after the film was done), making this a 'lost work' of mine. And I wouldn't exactly classify this as part of my oeuvre since it's really just a class project of sorts. The film only existed in the form of some DVDs that I managed to burn for myself. There are some works that I've done which I would rather it doesn't see the light of the day, but I had a lot of fun shooting 3PM, with the help of a nice cast and crew. And I wouldn't want the film to disappear just like that, so I might as well upload

It was getting increasingly hard to sleep recently, especially in the past few weeks. I could never understand why.

My friend, author Quentin S Crisp, has an important announcement to make. Dear Readers, My name is Quentin, but please call me Quentin S. Crisp. I have had the privilege of being interviewed on this blog in the past, and now I would like to address you directly. For some time I have been in correspondence and creative collaboration with Justin Isis, guest writer on this blog. A significant overlap in our aesthetic concerns led us to found the dadaoist blogzine, Chômu . Catching the westering rays of that dying blog (which will perhaps rise again), and taking its name therefrom, a new celestial body has appeared in the publishing firmament: Chômu Press.

Yesterday, I noticed an increase of traffic for last year's blog post about the Mitama Matsuri (or Mitama Festival) at the Yasukuni Shrine . I checked the date and realized that it's exactly been a year (plus a day) since I went to the festival. Last year I went with two of my friends, Zifeng and Yang Yang, it was a fun experience. We went there in the evening, and left after sunset. It took me a while to decide whether I wanted to go again or not, with a newer camera, I could take much better photos than last year's. Too bad I would be going alone, but then, it's always been the case anyway. This time, I arrived at the shrine at around 7:30pm. It was already night.

My old laptop died last month and I ended up being forced to get a new one. Well, it was about time anyway, the laptop had been with me for more than 3 years, a usual life span for laptops? I just opened its hard disk and hooked it up to my new comp just now because I needed to extract some information needed for tomorrow's final Masters' Thesis presentation. Then I saw some of the photos from my last day in Cannes which I have yet to upload on Flickr, and also an earlier video, so here you go. This video was taken on May 18th, when Professor Ando was bringing us to this nice place for dinner.

25th of June. Everyone were leaving Brignogan. Before that they were waiting at the hotel lobby, it was the only place where the Wi-Fi signal was decent. By evening, almost everyone was gone. I made my way through the beach...

24th of June, last day of the workshop in Brignogan. After the session ended, I was interviewed by a local paper! (Orsi of Hungary, served as translator)

The script workshop sessions in Brignogan were usually held outdoors. How could it be otherwise? The scenery was great, we get to look at the clear blue sea. And here's my teammate Anita of Bratislava, Slovakia, enjoying herself.

Ah, it's good to be operating in full strength again. After my grievous bout of nosebleed , and the upset tummy that lasted for a couple of days. Every time when I was on the verge of recovering, I would eat something... unhealthy, prolonging the pain, so during the weekend I decided to cut down my meals. It was pretty horrible. Brignogan-Plages, or simply Brignogan, was where I had my scriptwriting workshops. After spending two days in Brest , a car picked me and a few others up at the train station and took us to Brignogan, a village 30 km away. It didn't take too long.

Still suffering from jet lag, I found it difficult to sleep last night. I stayed up the whole night, watching both the Japan - Paraguay match, and the last half hour of the Spain - Portugal match. Stomach felt queasy, another bout of food poisoning-like symptoms were creeping over me, though back then I was unable to pinpoint the actual source of my discomfort, and believed I might be having trouble adjusting to my bed again. (I disregarded the fact that I slept pretty comfortably through the afternoon after I got back from the airport, I thought I was merely too exhausted then to notice the discomfort) I dozed off finally at 9am and woke up less than 2 hours later, feeling a familiar sensation in my nose. Blood again, was pouring out of my right nostril, profusely. I said 'again', because obviously I am used to this occurrence.

Ask me what I thought of Brest, two days earlier, when I was stuck there after missing my flight, I would have launch into an expletive-filled tirade. But now that I've reached Tokyo, and slept through the afternoon, I look at Brest, not with nostalgia, but with acceptance that the place played a rather big role in my latest trip. My workshop was mostly in Brignogan, which is 30-45 mins away from Brest, by car. But due to circumstances I had never expected, I actually realized I have spent three and a half nights in Brest, compared to the 6 in Brignogan, I ended up becoming quite familiar with the city center. It's unlikely that I would ever return to Brest, it's not one of those places that I would go to for personal reasons. So acknowledging that fact does make me feel a little fonder of the place. Anyway, a short chronicle of my days in Brest.

That was how I felt when I had to stay in Brest for another day. The initial plan was simple. After writing my last post, I was supposed to go to the Brest station, catch a train to Paris, enjoy the beautiful countryside scenery during the 4-hour train ride, and then after reaching the Charles De Gaulle, sleep at the airport, and take the plane back to Tokyo. Alas, things didn't work out, I was shell-shocked when there wasn't a train to be caught, and ended up being forced to reschedule my flight. Thus I ended up in Brest for an extra day. It's a frustrating feeling, when all your mind is prepared to go home, and BOOM! Some unforeseeable crap happened, and I ended up being stuck.

Heya folks, I've been in Brignogan, France, for the past week or so. Brignogan is this nice coastal village 30 mins away from Brest. Been so busy with my scripwriting workshop, so no time to really post anything here. I took many pretty photos too, no time to upload either. It is now 10:53am, a car is supposed to pick me up at 3:30pm and take me to Brest station, where I will have to take a train to Paris (train ride lasts 3-5 hours). After I reach the Paris Airport, I will still wait for another couple of hours before I fly back to Tokyo (the flight is at 7am, next morning). I expect to, well, sleep in the airport. I brought two books with me for the trip, David Mitchell's CLOUD ATLAS, and Vladimir Nabokov's THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT. I was already in the last quarter of CLOUD ATLAS, so I finished the book while I was still in the plane. SEBASTIAN KNIGHT turned out to be a much breezier read than expected, I finished that during my first two days in France, eve

The last day in Cannes was quite uneventful. All the pressure and stress we had leading towards our screening were finally gone. We could finally just enjoy the festival and the place, it's a little unfortunate that our screening took place towards the end of the festival, otherwise we could have had more relaxing days like this.

Had been shutting myself away from the rest of the world working on a new film treatment. Then, my comp died. I ended up doing the writing at Saizerya (a Japanese "family restaurant" similar to Denny's) in the past few hours. Will continue writing that. But for now, take a look at a video from THE TIGER FACTORY press conference at the Cannes Film Festival on the 21st of May, 2001, just before its official screening. Jeremy Segay moderated the Q and A, those present were Ming Jin (the producer-writer-director), me (the producer-writer-editor) and Moon Lai (or Fooi Mun, the lead actress).

Spent the entire last week trying to finish up my Master's Thesis. It's due end of this month, but I had other things to do, so had to get it done earlier. I succeeded. Now, on with my penultimate post for the Cannes trip.

Nothing happened on my 7th day in Cannes. That was the 20th of May, just a day before our press conference and screening. We continued going around giving out invitations to friends and people who were interested in catching THE TIGER FACTORY. After that we bumped into Lee, editor of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's eventual Palm D'or winning 'UNCLE BOONME WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES', and the actress Wallapa (who played the princess in the film). We went off to have some kebab. Lee gave us tickets to the Uncle Boonme gala screening too, awesome!

Been busy writing my masters thesis (due end of June), giving my mid-term thesis presentation in Wednesday (just two days after I got back from Cannes) and being repeatedly pestered to give advice for someone else's graduate film project that I had no time to update my blog. 19th of May. Went to the gala screening of Lee Chang Dong's Poetry. That was probably the highlight of that day, I can't remember anything else from that day.

After meeting Abbas Kiarostami at MK2's Jia Zhangke party , I knew I had to catch his film.

At the main Palais building of the Cannes Film Festival, where the Market is held, and just between the theaters showing the competition films and the Un Certain Regarde films, there's a Nespresso Cafe that provides free coffee to people with festival accreditations.

I've returned to Tokyo this morning. It's been an enjoyable trip in Cannes. The reception for THE TIGER FACTORY was very warm, there was a nice standing ovation, but I'll get to that later.

Discovered a nice bakery at Juan Le Pins in the morning.

I'm staying in a hotel at Juan Le Pins, which is one station away from Cannes. As I took a walk around, I realized Juan Le Pins is quite a charming little place.

I arrived at the Charles De Gaulle Airport on 4am. I was supposed to wait for 3 hours before the transit to Nice.

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.

Today is Mother's Day, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share with you all my very first non-student short film, CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY (2008), which is now uploaded on Youtube

On the 6th of May, before I caught sight of Denis the tap dancing painter , I saw Yui Ibuki 伊吹唯 performing at the West exit of Shinjuku station (I was on my way to Yodobashi Camera to check out some camera lenses).

Last night, as I was heading home from Shinjuku, I saw Denis, a tap dancing painter. I can assure you that it's not really a common sight in Shinjuku. The guy had a lot of showmanship and had attracted a large crowd of people during his performance.

On Sunday, the posters of THE TIGER FACTORY were finally delivered to us. They looked good. To celebrate that, Professor Ando decided to organize a short tour in Asakusa for Ming Jin and the rest of us THE TIGER FACTORY gang.

This teaser was also posted on Twitch and the official Directors' Fortnight website . Here's some info of the film:

The Japanese Golden Week had begun. I met up with three of my old friends, Ai, Iyo and Maiko. Not Maiko the Producer, but another Maiko, who, like Ai and Iyo, were friends I met during my Perth days in 2005, when they were exchange students.

The past few days went by in an even quicker blur. Day became night, night became day, sometimes I didn't sleep, sometimes a nap is treated as a sleep, I have lost all sense of time. I went back to Malaysia for 3 nights to:

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)

Pearlly Chua and Lai Fooi Mun in THE TIGER FACTORY Ever since the news announcement of THE TIGER FACTORY's Directors' Fortnight selection in the Cannes Film Festival (once again, I would like to point out that the film is a Malaysian - Japanese co-production, which wasn't mentioned in the initial press release, nor written on the official website!!) I haven't been getting any proper sleep. Last night I slept (more like fell asleep before the computer) at 12am and woke up at 3am. Then after that I just started replying to many emails from some publicists and distribution companies who had interest in our film, and then had email exchanges with Prof Ando the executive producer, who was also awake.

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.

I mentioned in my previous post that the Thai-language short film that I wrote and produced, LADYBIRD'S TEARS, will be having its world premiere at the 23rd Singapore International Film Festival tomorrow (19th of April, 2010). Aside from that, both the shorts that I wrote and directed, LOVE SUICIDES and KINGYO will also be part of their Asian Shorts program. It's quite an honour to have 3 shorts that I was involved in being presented at the film festival.

Back in January, I mentioned that I was reworking somebody else's film . The film will end up being called 'LADYBIRD'S TEARS', directed by my Thai friend, Kong Pahurak, and starring Zhu Dan (who can be seen in my upcoming short THE WHITE FLOWER, which Kong acted in as well). In the previous post, I mentioned that LADYBIRD'S TEARS were assembled from footages of Kong's unfinished experimental short film STARDUST MEMORIES. I saw some potential in what he did, and decided that it would be a bit of a pity to leave the film in the can. The pictures you see here are actual screenshots of the film.

The rain 2 days ago removed most of the cherry blossoms from sight. How fleeting they were, and how hard it is to not feel a tinge of melancholy to know that I won't see them for another year.

Time for me to upload the rest of the photos I took while I was in Bratislava (check out the earlier Bratislava blog posts and photos here ). I was waiting to do this only when I was able to edit together the video I took on that particular day.