Catching the sunset in Odaiba, and seeing Japan's Statue of Liberty

It's difficult to see the sunset in Tokyo, so I decided to go to Odaiba (an artificial island in Tokyo Bay) today to do that instead after a few recommendations from friends.

Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure

Managed to catch another film at the Refugee Film Fest last night, this one's a documentary about the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse called STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, by Errol Morris, director of the seminal documentary THE THIN BLUE LINE. I watched the latter two years ago when I sneaked into the lecture sessions of the documentary class while studying in Perth.

Being the only other film by Morris I've watched, I still notice that he retained his style for STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, which is driven entirely by the interviews of his subjects and some reenacted scenes. With a budget of 5 million USD, and a score by Danny Elfman, this is a documentary that features 'production values' of what you normally see in its Hollywood fictional counterparts, shots of playing cards showing Saddam and his sons faces falling slow-mo onto the ground etc. Along with some really beautiful filmmaking flourishes that you don't see often in a documentary, like the scene which shows the assembling of a forensic timeline using hundreds of Abu Ghraib photos taken by three different cameras.

[Tokyo Refugee Film Festival] PRAYER OF PEACE: RELIEF AND RESISTANCE IN BURMA'S WAR ZONES / JUN-AI

Right, so I said I was going to take a brief hiatus to force myself to write for my new short film. I might have underestimated my own writing skills since it took me only one night to finish what I need to write.

I went to the 3rd Annual Refugee Film Festival in the past two days (Friday and Saturday) and attended the screenings held at NHK Fureai Hall. The Tokyo Refugee Film Festival is organized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and it screens films that draws attention to the human side of refugees (theme of the World Refugee Day's this year)

Brief Hiatus

Taking a break from blogging.

Anyway, production of my upcoming Japanese short film, Yuki, will be temporarily postponed.

Negotiations with my lead actress Kazue Fukiishi had gotten a little complicated. (kidding)


Kazue Fukiishi


There's supposed to be a June 30th deadline for me to beat, so I intend to whip together another short film instead. I won't say much about it, but it'll be something along the vein of Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. A video essay, an attempt on visual poetry, using unused video footages I've shot in the past, including my India travel videos.

Need to shut myself out to concentrate in writing. Normally a blog entry takes away so much from me that once I've updated it, I'm too drained to actually write something else. When it comes to creative endeavours, I'm no multi-tasker*. :(

* I mean, I'm normally a multi-hyphenate (director - writer - producer - editor), I don't mind juggling multiple tasks for one project, but to juggle a few projects at once lessens my focus.

CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY and KURUS screening at KLue Urbanscapes 2008 (28th of June)!

I first received a phone call from a lady from KLue sometime in late February (just a few days before I started shooting CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY). She told me that it was filmmaker and friend Tony Pietra who had given her my number, and the conversation was like that:

[VIDEOS] 3rd Auntie's singing comeback at a fundraising concert for the Sichuan Earthquake.

I've mentioned before that my mom was once a singer. In fact, my parents were married mostly due to these circumstances (Mom was a recording artiste for a label that my dad was in, the tale of their courtship was in Sin Chew newspapers two years ago)

Mom's younger sister, my 3rd auntie, was a singer too. But she had gone on hiatus for nearly 15 years (or was it 20?), since opting the idyllic life of a housewife:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gave me mixed feelings

Saw this on Sunday immediately when it premiered in Tokyo. Here's a confession, unlike most, my best film memories in childhood weren't really the Indiana Jones films. Because, quite frankly, I can't remembe them much at all. I saw THE LAST CRUSADE when it first came out in theaters and I was only 6. Then I watched RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK a year later when it was screened in primary school for Children's Day, I remembered how the projectionist was being an ass by putting his hand over to projector during the kissing scenes to 'protect' the children's eyes.

The Chinese Program at the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2008

Just as I've mentioned in my previous post, I returned to the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2008, this time for the Chinese Program that my friend, Cara Yuan (she organizes the mobile film festival in China) was curating.

Attending the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2008

I first heard about SHORT SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL from Cara Yuan, organizer of the mobile phone film festival in China (I met her when I was at the Hong Kong International Film Festival back in March). She has came over to Tokyo to curate the Chinese program for the Short Shorts Film Fest, which will be featuring short films by Wong Kar Wai ('THERE'S ONLY ONE SUN', I've seen it on Youtube before) and Fruit Chan. I'm attending that a few hours from now, after I wake up (it's 3:42am while I'm writing this).

But wanting to familiarize myself with the way to the film fest, I decided to attend another one of the programs yesterday afternoon, right after I finish classes. Each program is 110 minutes long and is a compilation of short films for a particular competitive category. The one I went to was a screening of short films for the ASIA and JAPAN Competition, along with one entry for the STOP! Global Warming Competition. Then there's also a special screening of Tadanobu Asano's 224466, a 25-minute long short film he directed and starred in. Since I've just watched Mongol yesterday, it marks the second consecutive day I saw an Asano film.

"I came to Japan to make porn."

Since moving to Tokyo two months ago, the most often-repeated line I hear from male friends is:

"You should make porn in Japan."

Haunted by the interview of Akihabara knifeman's parents

The past few nights had been a non-stop coverage of the Akihabara Massacre and the killer, Tomohiro Kato. Not exactly the most uplifting stuff for a guy like me to watch when sick.

There was a TV interview with the parents of the killer last night. Their faces were obscured to protect their identities, only the father spoke during the 4-minute interview, the mother stood behind him, sobbing quietly, unable to manage a single word.

The father apologized for their son's actions, but it was the image of the mother collapsing onto the ground at the end of the interview that haunts me.

She was literally crawling back to the front door of her house where her husband was standing and waiting. I seriously thought it was heartbreaking.

I cannot imagine what is this like. To live with this for the rest of their lives. I think they are victims of their son's actions as well.