On the 4th of October, Ming Jin's documentary RETURN TO NOSTALGIA finally had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.
RETURN TO NOSTALGIA is part of the POWER OF ASIAN CINEMA program, in commemoration with the 20th anniversary of the Busan Film Fest, 10 Asian directors were each commissioned to make a 50-minute documentary about their own cinematic history.
Ming Jin chose to make a film about the search for SERUAN MERDEKA, the very first post-war Malay film which is missing.
Before the screening of RETURN TO NOSTALGIA, however, I went to catch the first two volumes of Miguel Gomes' sprawling three-part ARABIAN NIGHTS. The films began with a disclaimer that they are not adaptations of the novel (more like a film that's very loosely inspired by the novel)! Structurally they are similar, they are mostly tales of modern-day Portugal, being told by Scheherazade to the Sultan. So there are least 3-4 different stories of different genres in each film, done in very different styles.
If it weren't for the RETURN TO NOSTALGIA screening, we would have been able to finish Volume 3! (or go to the gala screening of Hirokazu Koreeda's OUR SISTER) Never have I felt so sad during a screening of my own production.
I jest.
The screening of RETURN TO NOSTALGIA went on pretty smoothly. It was good to present a small glimpse of our country's cinema history to a foreign land.
The local media had kindly covered this documentary since then.
Thanks, Malay Mail Online, for sharing the news! Yup, RETURN TO NOSTALGIA by Woo Ming Jin will have its world premiere...
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Saturday, October 3, 2015
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Monday, October 5, 2015
感恩中国报的报导。 希望有那么的一天能与马来西亚的观众们分享《眷念重来 RETURN TO NOSTALGIA》。
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Many thanks to THE STAR for covering Woo Ming Jin's RETURN TO NOSTALGIA. It's the documentary that was in Busan last...
Posted by Edmund Yeo on Monday, October 12, 2015
