Edmund Yeo

Two days after I came back from Copenhagen, I immediately headed off to a TV movie shoot that I was co-directing. Here are some photos from the Masya Alisya set.

Yesterday, I realized that this blog has existed for more than 10 years. In an era of social media sites, the idea of keeping a blog is so passé, yet it remains. And so, this blog has accompanied me for a decade, from my time as a directionless university student in Perth, to the gradual realization of my childhood dreams of becoming a filmmaker. In truth, I cannot really remember how did I end up starting this blog. The first ever post of this blog was me giving a progress update on a novel that I was working on. But who was I addressing? I can't remember anymore. Perhaps the blog was started so that I could update a small circle of friends about what I was doing in Perth. The first blog post was, in fact, pretty much what would have been a Facebook status update, or a Tweet. My oft-used online pseudonym then was "Swifty", I wanted to update people about my "writings", so the original URL of this blog was swiftywriting.blogspot.com In 2005, I would

So, here I am, a weeks since I have returned from Copenhagen, and 5 days into a TV movie shoot. It's been a month since the world premiere of RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS at the Tokyo International Film Festival. And three weeks since the third (last) screening of the film at the festival. I have written about the first screening and the second screening of the film, so I figured I'll wrap things up. I'm writing all these mostly to help myself remember.

Pirjo Honkasalo's THE 3 ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA (2004) is one of the few films I caught in CPH:DOX at Copenhagen last week. I walked into the cinema with high expectations, since the CPH:LAB booklet I was given had recommended us lab people to go to the film, calling it one of the greatest documentaries ever made. Despite the expectations, I was indeed mesmerized by what I saw, with numerous images haunting me long after I left the theaters. The film reminded me that non-fiction cinema can indeed be made with sheer artistry and poetry. I was reminded of Tarkovskian films of yore, even assuming that it was a film made in that time period. I was surprised that it was done merely a decade ago. Perhaps it was shocking to me, to see such things happening so recently.

The CPH:DOX international documentary film festival, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, is one of the most prestigious and well-known documentary festivals around. Every year, as part of the festival, the CPH:LAB (formerly known as DOX:LAB) is held where 20 directors around the world are invited to attend workshops and classes. These 20 directors are paired up so that they can make an audiovisual project together, it can be a feature-length film, a short film, a documentary, a video installation etc. This year, I was one of the 20 directors who was given the opportunity to participate in this. (and I'm paired up with the Croatian director Sonja Tarokic)

25th of Oct, a day after the RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS world premiere, I had two "free days" before the next screening.

This is the video from the Oct 24 press conference of RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS, just a couple of hours before its world premiere.

I finally got back from Tokyo. The Tokyo International Film Festival in the past 10 days had been absolutely emotional, and inspiring. I will now take the time to update the blog with Facebook posts (not just mine, but others too) of the wondrous journey RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS had taken during its world premiere in this grand, prestigious festival. It all felt like a dream.