China Mobile Film Fest 2009 recap

Okay, I was thinking of writing my thoughts on AVATAR, which I saw and really enjoyed yesterday, but better to give a quick recap of the entire China Mobile Film Festival before I forget about it.

KINGYO reunion party

Yes, it's Christmas, but let me post some long overdue blog entries for now.

The KINGYO team had a reunion party on the 15th of December, right after the CON-CAN Award Ceremony.

Actually, it's more like a 'wrap party' instead of a 'reunion party'. Although we finished the shoot for KINGYO almost a year earlier (principal photography was done by the end of January 2009), none of us had the chance to really had a 'wrap party'. None of us were able to be at the same city at the same time, so it was great to finally have something like that.

Here's part of the team.


(from left to right: me, Kawamura-san who borrowed us his house for the shoot, still photographer Zhang Xiaolei, production assistant Seki, lead actress Luchino, production assistant An-chan, Lia the Artist/ Assistant director, Maiko the producer and Linto the post-production technician)

The CON-CAN Movie Festival Awards Ceremony and Ando Lab screening in Waseda

Last month, the people of CON-CAN Movie Festival decided to hold an awards ceremony in Waseda University because, aside from me, another award winner Nishihara, was also a Waseda student.

The Eibunren Awards Ceremony 2009

I went to the Eibunren Awards Ceremony yesterday morning with my family (who came to Tokyo for a 1-week visit). As I've mentioned before, KINGYO had won two awards, the Semi-Grand Prix and the Best New Creator award.

The Eibunren Awards is organized by the Japanese Ministry of Culture and the Japanese Association of Audiovisual Producers usually to honour documentaries or other videos dealing with sociopolitical or ecological issues. KINGYO is the first ever independent narrative short film to receive a major award from them, so they gave me the new individual award called the New Creator award.

Me, kingyo, Eibunren Awards wins, mentioned in Uni Press newsletter

I have blamed my recent sleeping problems on work (the heavily intense post-production of my short film THE WHITE FLOWER), I've even constantly tweeted (+facebook status update) about it. But moments ago, a guzheng-playing Twitter friend Seren Koo replied to me by suggesting that writing down my ideas and what I want to do would liberate thoughts from my mind, and thus making it easier to sleep.

I realized that my lack of sleep seems to correlate with my lack of blog updates. Many times, writing a blog post at night for me can be quite (mentally) exhausting (despite said post being deceptively mindless!), and I can just drift off to sleep after that. Thus I will start writing something long, and insightful and mentally taxing just so I can exhaust myself enough to sleep.

Alas, the blog post you're reading now is probably not one of them.

KINGYO receives two awards at Eibunren Awards

I actually knew about this back in September, when I was in Singapore for the Singapore Short Film Festival. Maiko the Producer called me then to tell about the good news, but since the awards ceremony is in December, I didn't think there was any need to announce this earlier.

But since I've already announced about FLEETING IMAGES winning the Grand Prix at the CON-CAN Movie Festival, I'll make a mention of this as well.

So yes, my Japanese short film KINGYO had picked up two awards from Japan's Eibunren Awards: The Semi-Grand Prix (or Silver Grand Prix) and Best New Creator (also occasionally referred to as the Best New Director award) awards.

Organized by the Japanese Ministry of Culture and the Japanese Association of Audiovisual Producers, I was told that this is the first time an independent narrative short film had ever received a major award from the association. And in order to commemorate this, I became their first ever recipient of the Best New Creator award.

Definitely very honoured by this.

The awards ceremony will be on the 2nd of December. Parents and sister are attending.



Trailer of KINGYO (click here if you cannot see embedded video)

Waseda Weekly Magazine (12th of November, 2009)

There's a profile of Maiko the Producer and I on Waseda Weekly magazine that came out today (actually, yesterday, since it's 2am now).

Trailer of KINGYO

I never really thought of cutting a trailer for KINGYO, I had always thought it would be silly to slap together a trailer for a short film, that's why I merely allowed a preview of the film's first 90 seconds in its official site.

KINGYO screening tonight at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2009

Don't think I've mentioned this before, but there's a screening of KINGYO tonight (and the 23rd) at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival as part of the Asian Shorts 3 program. You can read about it here.

KINGYO screening at Unicus Cinemas, and some THE WHITE FLOWER update

I went to Honjo at Saitama yesterday for a KINGYO screening at the Unicus Cinema (it's a multiplex in a shopping mall called Unicus).

I think it was for the opening event of their inaugural Honjo Kodama Area Film Festival. Both my film, and a Chinese-Japanese co-produced documentary (also from the lab I'm), Shaolin Kungfu, were there. My friends, Yang Yang and Zifeng, were the editors of that film. This is me in Professor Ando's (executive producer of KINGYO) car, heading to the multiplex, with Maiko, Zifeng and Yang Yang.

What on earth do people do at film festivals? (Cinema Online, 6th of October 2009)

I'm flying off to Pusan this evening for the Pusan Film Festival. Tomorrow I'll be attending the premiere of WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, the film I produced and edited. This is an interview I did with Zee of Cinema Online during my last day at the Venice Film Festival.

How KINGYO actress Luchino Fujisaki took Venice Film Fest by storm

UPDATED 13th Nov, 2016: This is my short film Kingyo, in its entirety

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Despite enduring some of the worst crises in recent memory (the untimely demises of two hard disks in mere weeks, losing some raw data of my short films, even the new, unreleased ones like AFTERNOON RIVER), I have SURVIVED (re-edited AFTERNOON RIVER from scratch, now in the midst of completing my newest, EVENING SKY). So of course I'm in a better mood, though I'm still disconnected from the rest of the world to get my things done.

I will now continue my recount of the Venice Film Festival.

The KINGYO screening at the Venice Film Festival

Lots of distractions had occurred in the past two days. My hard disk died suddenly, and I lost a couple of short films I made since KINGYO (as in, AFTERNOON RIVER, 3PM, and bits and pieces of EVENING SKY that I've just edited). Since my backup had already died couple of weeks earlier, I've pretty much lost two hard disks in a space of two weeks. Can't exactly say that I'm in the best of moods, but I will be hiding at home re-editing AFTERNOON RIVER (with its DVD as reference), familiarizing myself with Adobe Premiere Pro again. I wanted to weep but my eyes had gone too dry.

So I'll recount the KINGYO screening at the Venice Film Festival back on the 7th of September. Wow, has it been 18 days already?

Venice Premiere (The Star, 9th of September 2009)

Internet access is limited (I only get it at the film festival place, not my hotel), so haven't been giving people as many updates as I wanted.

One more hour before the second KINGYO screening in Venice. My two actresses, Luchino Fujisaki and Amane Kudo had just arrived last night, so they'll be present for today's screening. Hope the reception will be as warm as the one I got two nights ago.

I'm on THE STAR today as well, in an article written by Allan Koay. I like the photo of myself because I didn't look fat. (it helped that it was a self-portrait)

Sneak preview: kingyo's opening scenes

One more day before I head off to Venice. Here's a sneak preview of the opening scenes from my short film, KINGYO.

大馬新晉導演殺進威尼斯影展 (China Press, 18/8/2009)

Here's an article from China Press. Didn't get to scan it, but link to original article is here. During the phone interview I was asked whether I was representing Japan at the festival, since Kingyo's a Japanese production, but I actually listed the film as a Japanese-Malaysian co-production. Rest of the blog post will be written in Chinese again.

哈罗， 我是杨毅恒。 今天和大家分享来自中国报的访问报道。

《金鱼》入围威尼斯影展短片单元。 杨毅恒： “像到了‘神坛’” (Sin Chew Daily, 15/8/2009)

I was on Sin Chew Daily last Saturday, didn't know about it until some friends told me via Facebook.

The article, which was about KINGYO going to next month's Venice Film Festival, is entirely in Chinese. But I was quoted as saying that "a friend of mine mentioned that going to Venice is like going to a 'Pantheon'." (actually I was quoting an interview article I read from my friend, Singaporean filmmaker Eva Tang 邓宝翠" (in 2002, she was the first Singaporean filmmaker in history to get her short film into Venice Film Festival, we met in at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year)

I'll include the entire article below. (The rest of this blog post will be written in Chinese...)



嗯， 大家好， 我就是杨毅恒。 这部落平时是用英文来写的， （因为自己的中文文笔蛮乱七八糟的）。 但是既然在下的短片“金鱼”入围威尼斯短片单元这好消息是中文报纸刊登的， 我就用中文来跟会对中文的读者们打个招呼以及分享这文章吧。

（这文章好像是上个星期六刊登的。 ）

My short film, KINGYO goes to the 66th Venice Film Festival

Rukino Fujisaki and Takao Kawaguchi in KINGYO


I knew about this a few days ago, but now the line-up's for the Corto Cortissimo (international competition of short films) of the 66th Venice Film Festival is officially out, I can finally announce it myself too.

My short film, KINGYO, will be making its world premiere at the 66th Venice Film Festival next month. To be in the oldest and one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world is an honour beyond my wildest dreams. Of course, this would never have happened without the cast and crew of KINGYO, thanks, guys. Some of us will be going to Venice.

"Edmund Yeo: Hot young Malaysian filmmaker tackles classic Japanese literature" - Interview with Toronto J-Film Pow Wow

After returning from last Saturday's Fuyajo Cinema Festival in the morning, I had a quick nap before getting up for an interview with Chris Magee of Toronto J-Film Pow Wow.

You'll get to read about a childhood incident that might have started my filmmaking dream.

it was how his parents approached the films that set Yeo on the path he's on today. "There was a time when I went to watch "Tremors" with my parents in the cinema when I was really young," Yeo remembers, "I was freaking out. Mom thought the best way to calm me down was to totally deconstruct the illusion of films, like pointing out how some stuff was just props, how they were just acting, how the guy didn't really die, how the monster was just a construct. Perhaps that deconstruction led to the whole discussion about how films were made." Yeo's mother explained that the person in charge of the props, actors and the monster worms in "Tremors" was called a "director". The lightbulb went on for Yeo.

You can read the full article here.

Thanks, Chris.

(I assume the 'hot' in 'hot young Malaysian filmmaker' is a reference to my physical attractiveness, which had long been overlooked. Hah.)

Kingyo's test screening at Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Shinjuku Wald 9

The work-in-progress version of Kingyo finally had its test screening at the Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Wald 9 last night (or technically, this morning, since it was screened at 12am)

A couple of the cast and crew came.

I was happy to see main actress Luchino Fujisaki again. We just ran into each other at the elevator.

Here's a photo of her with Maiko the Producer and I.





(Luchino also had a brief blog entry about her thoughts just before the screening. It's in Japanese though)

We then took a group photo, this time with Lia the Artist/ Asst Director/ Production Designer's much nicer camera.