Edmund Yeo

Farewell 2016. It is fitting that I remember this year through photos from my upcoming film Aqérot, my short film Love is a Dog From Hell, and my end year trips to Busan and Tokyo Film Festivals. I look forward to another great year in cinema. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Girl searching for a better future #aqerot (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Making an important phone call (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Boat's not in good shape. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Cow's living the good life. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Man and lighthouse (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Fried noodles express (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Cycling under the watch of Lord Buddha (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Stone pillars in the middle of the forest (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Morning flights are great for sleeping (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's wonderful HAPPY HOUR , like the Iwai Shunji retrospective, was also part of the Japan Now section in the Tokyo International Film Festival. I need to give props to Japan Now. Ever since the festival started this section last year, with Ando-sensei (yup, my former university professor Kohei Ando-sensei1!!) serving as programming advisor, the section has become one of the main attractions of the festival. The screening of noteworthy (of commercial or critical merit) Japanese films of the past year, complete with Q and A sessions moderated by Ando-sensei, had been great! I remember having dinner with Ando-sensei in August right after he had served as jury member of the Guanajuato International Film Festival (where he saw Happy Hour for the very first time and awarded it the Best International Feature Narrative award) and we discussed about the trickiness of trying to program this film at the Tokyo International Film Festival due to its length (5 hours!!!)

I wrote this on Facebook last month, after watching Iwai Shunji's Love Letter at the Tokyo International Film Festival. I have seen this film countless times in various forms, on VCD, on DVD, on digital file, either on TV or on computer, but never on the big screen, so that particular screening in Tokyo left me overwhelmed, and of course, nostalgic. Here's my love letter to the film Love Letter: I saw Iwai Shunji's Love Letter (2005) on the big screen today. Sometimes you see a film at the right time, at the right age, so you fall in love with it in ways you cannot imagine. It was 1998. I was 14 when I first saw Love Letter, I think this might be the film that made me fell in love with Japanese cinema, the emotional impact it left me was immense. The lyricism, the romanticism, the pain of unspoken love and the melancholy of memories, I was intoxicated by these vivid feelings through this film. I loved a little more, contemplated a little more, daydreamed a little mo

Can't ride a bike here (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Houses left behind by time. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Valley of Hope (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

What's outside the window? (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

It's already been a month and I never had the chance to write about the Tokyo International Film Festival. This always happens when I'm preparing for a film shoot. I lose track of time. Today becomes yesterday, tomorrow becomes today, and I don't even notice it. Last month I went to the Tokyo International Film Festival for the world premiere of the omnibus project, Asian Three-Fold Mirror: Reflections . I was one of the producers of the segment, Pigeon by Isao Yukisada (along with Ming Jin and Shunsuke Koga-san) So, here are some photos of me at the red carpet. I managed to meet popular actor Saitoh Takumi, whom I met two years ago in Bali when he was doing the film Taksu . I also met Rin Takanashi, the star of Abbas Kiarostami's final film Like Someone in Love .

Birthday cake for my aunt and cousin is the greatest birthday cake ever. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Just a quick glimpse of Shibuya (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Late night laundry (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Tea ceremony at the Japanese Directors Guild party (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Endless tunnel (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Flight to Tokyo (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Wefie? Memefie? #isupportbiff (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Yes. The world is indeed a neverending film. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Behind me (and this scenery), we were shooting a zombie scene. #zombitopia (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Mmm. Early film shoot. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

In this suffocating heat of Malaysia, this Fukuoka Zen temple I visited felt like a distant dream (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Bye bye Fukuoka (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

I had half an hour to cut together a reel, this was my attempt

Had to complete my Fukuoka experience by having yatai ramen (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Yup, the very Zen temple constructed in Japan (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Shofukuji Zen Temple, the first Zen temple in Japan (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Having been drinking coffee nonstop since 5am, I feel like flying too. Good morning Fukuoka! (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Tenjin Chou Park, historical and renowned... Pikachu nest (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

During the rain, Hakata Station is drenched in colours (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Flowers and trees at Ohori Park swaying gently. Then it rained. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Discovering Ohori Park (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Saying hello to my first friend at Ohori Park, Fukuoka (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

After Alor Setar, I'm waiting to fly off to Fukuoka (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Paddy field dance 3 (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Paddy field dance 2 (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Paddy field dance (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Soulful mountain (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Elephant mountain (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Drowning in an ocean of paddy fields (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Patriotism is such a faraway thing. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

A glimpse of Alor Setar Tower (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Poor girl took a train to Busan (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Earlier this year, I was involved as one of the producers for director Isao Yukisada's "Pigeon", his segment for the omnibus project Asian Three-fold Mirror 2016: Reflections 『アジア三面鏡2016：リフレクションズ』 ( check out the photos posted by cast and crew ), produced by The Japan Foundation Asian Center and Tokyo International Film Festival. Its trailer is finally out! English version. And Japanese version. The Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo International Film Festival have co-produced the first of the Asian Omnibus Film series, Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2016: Reflections. The Asian Three-Fold Mirror project brings together three globally-acclaimed, talented directors from Asia to co-create a series of omnibus films with a common theme. The first of the omnibus film series, Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2016, reflects on history and culture in their chosen countries to create new light. Under the theme of “Living in Asia”, crew and cast joined forces across national bord

Watching koi fish from afar (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Apichatpong Weerasethakul corner at the Thai Film Museum. You can see his film props and 2010 Palme D'or trophy (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

I didn't know who Sugihara Chiune was until his biopic was shown in Malaysia few months ago. He was a Waseda alumni, this is his memorial. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Entering the Hanazono Shrine (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Some serenity in the middle of Shinjuku (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Milestone Cafe at Takadanobaba (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

New covers of Japanese literary classics are brilliantly blasphemous. #bungoustraydogs (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

With Ultraman around, this park feels safe (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

All Ultraman ever wanted was to play some pachinko. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Don't remember seeing Tokyu Plaza Ginza the last time I was here (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

I was finding Dory (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Yurakucho Center Building as night falls (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Kachidoki Bridge a few hours after midnight (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

A pleasant afternoon, a nice view. The right place to play Pokémon Go (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Flyers and pamphlets advertising Chinese Opera performances in Malaysia. No Facebook. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Five years ago, I wrote about the Karayuki-san . The Japanese women who were sold or smuggled into Southeast Asia (mostly pre-independence Malaysia and Singapore) to work as prostitute from the late 19th century to early 20th century. For reasons I cannot comprehend or explain, it became something that had haunted my mind for the past half decade. Maybe because this was a part of Japanese/ Malaysian history (countries obviously close to my heart) that was gradually being forgotten, so I became increasingly curious, and determined to commit their stories into film. There are publications about them, but films? The only ones I am aware of are still Kumai Kei's Oscar-nominated SANDAKAN NO. 8 (1974) and Shohei Imamura's KARAYUKI-SAN, THE MAKING OF A PROSTITUTE (1975). The former is a fictionalized retelling of their plight, the latter is a documentary. I finally found time to watch the documentary last night. In the documentary, the director Shohei Imamura was interviewing an

An exhibition of songs in different Malaysian Chinese dialects (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Happy belated birthday #MinaFujii @fujii_mina_0715 ! Our short film LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL (co-starring #YukiKubota @yuki_kubota.0615 ) is premiering at Bucheon Fantastic Film Fest next week! #bifan #久保田悠来 #藤井美菜 (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Ever since the passing of the Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, I've found myself remembering the brief personal memories I have of him. They were all very fleeting. Cannes Film Festival 2010 Merely that Ming Jin and I, along with Fooi Mun, our The Tiger Factory lead actress saw him at the MK2 party and had to hurriedly (and politely) stop him to take these photos before he was about to leave.

Film shoot happening outside a traditional Chinese pharmacy. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Two ladies hanging out at the park after midnight (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

I stumbled upon some a top secret midnight mooncake picnic (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Once again I've been restoring and uploading some of the old short films that Ming Jin and I had made over the past decade onto the Greenlight Pictures Youtube channel. My latest upload is Ming Jin's 2005 short film CATCHING THE SEA, which stars Pete Teo and Liew Seng Tat and served as a precursor (or spin-off) for his feature film THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA.

Recently, as I was finishing up a making-of documentary that I was working on in the past few months, I decided to do some research on other great making-of documentaries. It's always great to seek inspiration from the masters, and I was also thinking of an Andrei Tarkovsky documentary that I watched on Youtube a year or two ago, Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky . Thanks to Cinephilia & Beyond's comprehensive article on documentaries of Andrei Tarkovsky , I learnt of a great Youtube channel which had uploaded some really great Tarkovsky interviews and documentaries.

Mayjune finding inspiration for her upcoming concert (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

The past few weeks I've been uploading some of the older films, shorts and telemovies that Ming Jin and I had done over the past decade on the Greenlight Pictures Youtube channel . Last night I've uploaded AFTERNOON RIVER, EVENING SKY. I made this short film in 2009. Because it had the misfortune of being made between my (relatively more high-profiled short films) KINGYO and the INHALATION/ EXHALATION pair, this short (along with a few others I made within those few months) kinda got lost in the shuffle.

A list of 10 Best Scenes in Wong-Kar-Wai films on Taste of Cinema prompted me to think of my own favourite scenes in his films too.

The music video I directed for pop star Nicole Lai is finally out! Had a lot of fun doing this, time was short, I shot this during a brief break between two festival trips. Please check it out! Now I switch back to Chinese. 前天与大家 分享了MV的预告片 ， 昨晚 Nicole赖淞凤 的【和时光拔河】完整版MV终于出炉了！

Aside from The Second Life of Thieves now being available for viewing at FilmDoo , Woo Ming Jin's latest work, the documentary, Return to Nostalgia (which I executive produced and did the colour grading) The 55-minute film will be having its Singapore premiere on 30th June, 7:30pm as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts . Screening will be held at The Projector! Apply for a pass (so you can catch all screenings at the festival) or buy a single ticket here : In fact, the version screened in Singapore will actually be a brand new version of the film. As I start to understand more on how to use Da Vinci Resolve during the past few weeks for colour grading, I decided to take his film and rework it again, being not too happy with its look in its previous iterations. It was good practice, and I regret a little that I didn't know how to use Da Vinci Resolve earlier. SYNOPSIS: Filmmaker Woo Ming Jin and his crew travel across the peninsula of Malaysia and Singap

前阵子执导了歌手NICOLE赖淞凤的【和时光拔河】MV， 听说已经在电视上播放了。 我自己什么都不知道， 只是昨天晚上在脸书上被人TAG了（好像是NICOLE的个人户口）， 才有机会看看这MV的30秒预告片!

THE SECOND LIFE OF THIEVES (2014) by Woo Ming Jin, which I produced, co-wrote and edited, has been released digitally on FilmDoo ! So please, go and watch it, I promise you it's something different from this part of the world. It's probably one of the rare gay films made in Malaysia. Aside from that, FilmDoo had also done a really cool interview with Ming Jin about the film .

Mmm, good chicken rice place. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Yet another Beijing photo from last December (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Superheroes everywhere... (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Walking past Meiji Shrine on New Year's Eve (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Another Beijing photo from last December (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Found some old Beijing photos taken last December (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

I first read about Liliosa Hilao a couple of years ago. I cannot really remember how did I actually stumble upon her story then. I was in Tokyo, I was binge-reading the colourful history of Philippines on Wikipedia, and like a labyrinth, it led me to unexpected places, namely the sad story of Liliosa Hilao . The atrocities that happened to her during Martial Law were painful to read, and after I was done, I remained haunted by it. A few years later, when I finally started making my film RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS, I decided to incorporate scenes of a high school class reenacting forgotten ASEAN history, because I was hoping to preserve these in cinema. The truth is, our education system, our history books, just like those in this region, are rather insular and limited, many things weren't allowed for discussion. How then, can we grow if we were kept constantly in a bubble? One of the scenes in RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS is a reenactment of Liliosa Hilao's story. I deci

Roberto Bolano, Umberto Eco and Arivind Adiga. 9.90 ringgit each. I couldn't resist. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Instead of working on my script, I ended up procrastinating and checking out my long dormant Youtube page. I then realized that I've actually been a Youtube user since 2006. That's 10 years. That's a really long time! I remember a couple of these video-sharing sites coming out around the same time during my final year in Perth, and I was trying a few time. All of them didn't last, except for Youtube. Many of my really old videos are still there, stuff I shot when I just got to Perth. Learning how to operate a camcorder, teaching myself how to edit with an editing software (I was using Sony Vegas). I have often wondered whether I should just delete these damn videos since I've already moved on. What I made then were embarrassingly personal (they are video diaries anyway), and not exactly the type of thing I would want people to associate myself. I want people to stumble upon trailers of River of Exploding Durians, Kingyo, Inhalation, Last Fragments of Winter

Friend lost her laptop. Devastated. I told her to believe in humanity by watching Prince’s Super Bowl Halftime Show https://t.co/GxZ0YRaYYA — Edmund Yeo (@greatswifty) April 23, 2016 Prince died two nights ago. Since then, I've been posting and retweeting a lot about him on Facebook and Twitter. I always knew who he was as he grew up, but wasn't really truly exposed to his greatness until I saw that Super Bowl Halftime Show. That was epic and spine-tingling. Two days later, when a friend lost her Macbook and External Hard Disk, and was entirely distraught, all I could do was to ask her to believe in the goodness of humanity by watching Prince's Super Bowl Halftime Show.

This 2005 short film by Woo Ming Jin was made during the height of the period which some had referred to as the "Malaysian New Wave". It was a time when a tight-knit group of filmmakers in the country started making films together, or helping each other by taking different roles in the production. It was the rise of DV cameras and digital filmmaking, which gave many the chance to make their own films. The two leads of this short film are actually fellow filmmakers Tan Chui Mui and Liew Seng Tat, who were a year or two before they each made their breakthrough feature debuts, LOVE CONQUERS ALL and FLOWER IN THE POCKET. Here's the synopsis: In this black comedy about the disintegration of a love affair, a young woman's (Tan Chui Mui) loneliness in the midst of Kuala Lumpur's metropolitan sprawl triggers a tenuous relationship with a naïve salesman (Liew Seng Tat) who has a tendency to please and over-emote.

Sharifah Amani plays Yasmin in PIGEON. Yasmin is named after the late great Yasmin Ahmad. Well, the awesome thing about social media and smart phones is that many film shoots are now being chronicled and posted about endlessly, relentlessly, by the cast and crew of the film. It wasn't like that 5-6 years ago, when all you had was one person taking production photos, and then posting them online later. (This blog had served this purpose back then with the earlier shoots that I was involved in) As for the PIGEON shoot last week, naturally, the cast and crew, and even director Isao Yukisada himself, were posting photos on Facebook and Instagram while the shoot was happening. I don't exactly have everyone's Instagram account (director Yukisada has more of a following on Facebook, which he is more active on, but his Instagram account is growing) I'm going to be sharing the ones from the director, the main cast members Sharifah Amani, Nas T, Sherry Alhadad, and also

From the 29th of March to 5th of April in the past two weeks, I was involved in the film shoot of Isao Yukisada's PIGEON. Greenlight Pictures and I were the Malaysian producers for this project, which is a segment in Tokyo Film Fest's upcoming omnibus project Asian Three-Fold Mirror. Shot mostly in Penang, with Malaysian and Japanese cast and crew members (... and one Thai sound guy), this 30-minute short film stars Sharifah Amani, Masahiro Tsugawa, Masatoshi Nagase, Sherry Alhadad, Nas T Muammar Zar, Sherry Alhadad. The photo album for this shoot is going to be constantly updated for the next few days. PIGEON is a segment of the "Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2016" omnibus film directed by Isao Yukisada.The short film was... Posted by Greenlight Pictures on  Friday, April 8, 2016

Old man vs group of thugs (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

After shooting a scene at Youth Park (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Simple Penang meal (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Admiring the exquisite performances of Masatoshi Nagase and Sharifah Amani. What a joy to see them share the screen together. It's day 2 of Director Isao Yukisada's PIGEON shoot. #asian3mirror (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Yeah! We have just started shooting Isao Yukisada's PIGEON! #asian3mirror (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Ponderous pussycats (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Tempted by the food, but nowhere to sit. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Hello again Penang (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Buskers at Nasi Lemak Bumbung

本地摇滚队异种《放弃治疗》MV。 林莉幃， 苏熙喆主演。 A music video of a Malaysian rock band, Alienoid. 異種 ‘放棄治療’ Official MV 異種 ‘放棄治療’ Official MV Posted by 異種 Alienoid on Thursday, March 10, 2016

前几天在脸书发的帖， 今天再补充。 希望可以与大家分享。 7部不能错过的大马中文电影。 之前都一直不知道自己的River of Exploding Durians 榴莲忘返也列在名单里。 因为想到被点名的都应该是院线播放了的作品。 谢谢 The Rakyat Post对本片的注意与欣赏。其实马... Posted by Edmund Yeo on  Wednesday, March 2, 2016 7部不能错过的大马中文电影。 之前都一直不知道自己的 《榴莲忘返》 也列在名单里。 因为想到被点名的都应该是院线播放了的作品。 谢谢人民邮报对本片的注意与欣赏。 其实马来西亚中文电影电影还有很多不能错过的。 例如几位马来西亚新浪潮前辈们的作品。 胡明进的《大象与海》， 《遗情》， 参与康城的《虎厂》， 《The Second Life of Thieves 偷·情》 （他的作品我是当制片以及剪接， 所以推荐比较多啦！） 陈翠梅的《爱征服一切》 刘城达的《口袋里的一朵花》 林丽娟的《理发师的女儿》 （片子没预告片， 我还是分享导演另一部短片好了） 何宇恒的《太阳雨》 李添兴的《美丽的洗衣机》， 《黑夜行路》与《当我们同在一起》， 等等 这些作品都比较文艺， 节奏， 风格与一般的商业电影不一样， 但也值得去看吧。

Crawling behind a shopping mall (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Shibuya in the morning before I left Tokyo. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

ZARD debuted 25 years ago. Died too young. Sorely missed. Legend. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Girl standing on a bridge (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

An intense confrontation. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Magnificent trees in shrine. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Having our steamboat dinner soon! Happy Chinese New Year! (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Nice view. No viewers though. (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

A part of the city forgotten by time (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Impressive row of motorbikes (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Busy morning market (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)

Busy morning market (Check out more photos from my Instagram account .)