Edmund Yeo

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

It is 3:30 am in the morning. I was trying to write on this journal an entry about a new project of mine called YASMIN-SAN, which is either a documentary or a film essay. I thought I had to write about it because I was about to start recording my own voiceovers for the film. I'm generally camera-shy and self-conscious (I don't appear in my own films), the idea of recording MY OWN VOICE for a film project left me a little uncomfortable. But YASMIN-SAN is going to be screened in public two weeks from now, so I don't have much of a choice! 9 years ago, I attempted a film essay called FLEETING IMAGES. It happened a few weeks after I moved to Tokyo. Adjusting to a new life in a new country, I clung on to my lifelong love: cinema and literature. I brought many DVDs with me to watch, one of them happened to be Chris Marker's SANS SOLEIL. After I watched it in one lovely Spring afternoon, I realized my life was changed, my senses realigned, and it opened up to me the infinite