Edmund Yeo

I am now waiting to fly off to India for the Kerala International Film Festival. I haven't been to India for 10 years, so I'm quite excited. I have to say that my previous trip was a memorable one. It was a month, I went to cities like Bangalore, New Delhi, and then going to places like Varanasi, Bodh Gaya etc. to make my pilgrimage. I was traveling with a Tibetan Rinpoche and a lama, I experienced the country in many different ways, from its beauty to its horrors, with images that seared into my mind until now. 10 years ago, I went to India, and after that, to Chile, I was 23. it was 2007. That was the year I met Woo Ming Jin and started a decade of collaboration, that was a year before I continued my studies in 2008. It cannot believe it's already been 10 years even though it did feel like a lifetime ago. But before India, I would like to share with you all a video recap painstakingly shot by TK Cheng, Aqérat's line producer, assistant director, production designer

This journal has existed since 2004, witnessing my days as a university student in Perth with dreams of filmmaking to the actual embarkation of my filmmaking journey. And thus it has witnessed many of my adventures and greatest triumphs, from my student short films in Murdoch during 2006 to directing a Japanese short film, KINGYO, that got into Venice Film Festival in 2009 to writing and producing Woo Ming Jin's TIGER FACTORY that got invited to the Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Fest in 2010, and then winning the Sonje Award for Best Asian Short Film the same year at Busan Film Fest with another short film, INHALATION. There are a lot of ups and downs, though I'm sure I don't really write the downs that much. Exactly a month ago, November 3rd 2017, I received an award for Best Director at the Tokyo International Film Festival, for my latest film AQÉRAT (We, The Dead). My lead actress Daphne Low, who had worked with me since 2013 for the short film FLOATING

When was the last time I have actually posted here? Probably nearly 6 months ago, during the Tokyo International Film Festival. The truth is, ever since I figured that I can automatically post my Instagram posts here, I have gotten lazy. But somehow, my Instagram pictures stopped appearing it, it's quite a bummer, but it means that I have to return and actually WRITE here. To my imaginary audience of one. In that amount of time since I was gone, I have shot my new feature film, "Aqérat". That was late December. Been working on it since then. "Aqérat", which means "life after death" in the Rohingyan language, tells the story of a desperate young woman named Hui Ling (played by regular collaborator Daphne Low) who gets involved in human trafficking. It's about the recent Rohingyan migrant crisis that had been happening the past few years, it's also a love story. Film is shot in the Northern state of Kelantan, which is really close to th