Four of my short films played on Astro A-List channel on February

As February is about to end, I would also like to thank Astro A-List (channel 450) for playing four of my old short films, KINGYO (2009), EXHALATION (2010), INHALATION (2010) and LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (2011) throughout the entire month.

Turning 30

So, I turned 30 yesterday. A while ago, I looked at it with slight trepidation, I don't think I was prepared to say goodbye to my twenties just like that.

Q & A session for my short films screening at CineMalaysia Film Festival

I have just spent three nights in Tokyo to attend the CineMalaysia Film Festival シネ・マレーシア, a great film festival organized in Tokyo to show Malaysian films. This was its inaugural edition. The film festival ran from the 24th to the 31st of May. I was around for the last two days.

Discussing the short film medium

Back in January, I was on Kenneth Chaw's The Star article "Short Films starting to appeal to a bigger audience", discussing about my thoughts on short films. Filmmaker James Lee and Youtube sensation Jinnyboy were interviewed too.

Prior to that, Kenneth had actually done a very lengthy email interview with me in preparation for his article. While a number of my quotes were in the final article, I thought I would like to share our entire discussion with everyone. I'm doing it now, with Kenneth's permission. (In truth, I have wanted to do this since January, but, ah, I never had the time.)

So, here we go.

Kenneth's questions are in bold.
My answers will just be... normal text.

James Lee, Jinnyboy and I talking about short films (The Star, 6th of January, 2013)

Back in December, I did an interview with The Star's Kenneth Chaw for an article about the rising popularity of short films in Malaysia. The article came out exactly three weeks ago while I was still in Kanazawa. (I found out about that, naturally, from friends on Facebook.)

The other interviewees were filmmakers James Lee and Jin Lim (more popularly known as JinnyBoy), well, excuse ME for not having a name that starts with J.

Kenneth and I had a really long email interview, which never really made it to the final article, but I will be posting that later. For now, you can just have a look at the full article:

Interview with me on the Pia International Film Festival website

This Japanese interview with me was done last November and had been posted on the PIA International Film Festival website.

I feel bad that I am posting old news, I never liked clinging to past glories. But for the sake of preservation, and just in case I cannot find the interview anymore, at least I will have records of it here.

The Films of Edward Yang

The Taiwanese director Edward Yang had been one of my biggest influences.

He died of cancer at the age of 60 exactly 5 years ago, on the 29th of June, 2007.

A few filmmaker friends of mine like Ying Liang and Eva Tang had posted the video below on Facebook to mark this occasion.

Creative Spotlight: Episode #96 – Edmund Yeo (JAPAN CINEMA interviews me)

The awesome Japan Cinema had posted a very in-depth interview I recently did with its editor-in-chief Marcello as part of their "Creative Spotlight" series.

Directing Life - article about me on Style: Magazine (Jan 2012)

I never imagined myself ever appearing on Style: Magazine. Ever. Not in my wildest dreams. Life is pretty insane. But here's Nicole Foo Bihzhu's feature on me at Style: Magazine.

I have to thank my old secondary school classmate Jesly Hieng once again, for scanning this. I was unable to find the magazine anywhere since I got back!

4 of my short films online now thanks to Yxine Film Fest's Mini-Focus on me.

The YxineFF is an annual online short film festival that focuses mostly on Vietnamese short films, and also some South East Asian ones.

I met its founder Marcus Manh Cuong Vu at last year's Hamburg International Film Festival, when he moderated the question and answer for THE TIGER FACTORY screening (Ming Jin the director couldn't go, so I went on his behalf as the immensely cute producer). He also later did a short interview with me about Malaysian Independent Cinema and other stuff.

I'm very honoured that this year's Yxine Film Festival is doing a mini-focus on me. For a temporary amount of time, four of my previous short films are uploaded online for the viewing pleasure of audiences, all of them except INHALATION are actually loose adaptations of Yasunari Kawabata's works.

Was in Hong Kong for the InDpanda International Short Film Festival 2011

I was in Hong Kong from the 24th to the 28th of August for the InDpanda International Short Film Festival, where my short films, INHALATION and EXHALATION, were part of the opening and closing programs. Here's me with the festival founders Henry Chan and Jonathan Hung.

My short films INHALATION and EXHALATION are opening and closing films of InDPanda Short Film Festival

The InDPanda International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong is happening from the 5th to the 25th of August. My short film, INHALATION (last screened at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico few days ago. You may remember that I wrote a message about the Bersih 2.0 rally to the audiences) will be part of its opening program on the 5th of August.

My message about the July 9th BERSIH rally to the Guanajuato International Film Festival

My short film INHALATION is now playing at the Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico. (film page here.)



Due to the fact that I was unable to make my trip to Mexico, the festival staff members asked whether I would like them to help me pass a message to the audience after the screening of my film. So I wrote them the following:

I was on NTV7 News (10th of April, 2011)

I was interviewed by NTV7.

Discussing INHALATION at the Clermont-Ferrand Intl Short Film Festival

Ernest Chong Shun Yuan and Susan Lee Fong Zhi in INHALATION


It's been nearly 3 nights since I got back from Europe, yet I still feel a little jetlaggy, a little worse for wear. Despite recovering from a bad cold while I was in Clermont-Ferrand, I ended up with another bad case of diarrhea (happens every time I go to France, really, 3 times in the last year. Maybe me and French food just don't mix, maybe I had too much French fries, maybe I shouldn't eat train food, maybe I shouldn't have airport food etc.)

5-minute previews of my short films EXHALATION and INHALATION

If you are one of the 3 people who had been following my filmmaking escapades so far, you'll know that I've made two short films, EXHALATION and INHALATION. Both are similarly titled and shared many common themes, but are ultimately two (vastly) different films.

我是个比较孤独的人-好戏网专访马来西亚新锐导演杨毅恒（我） "I'm quite a loner" - My interview in China's Mask9

Switching to Mandarin...

嗨， 朋友们。

最近接受了中国的《好戏网》访问。 他们已经将采访专题发布在《好戏网》的首页推荐。

若有兴趣的话， 请通过以下链接查看。 呵呵。

我是个比较孤独的人-好戏网专访马来西亚新锐导演杨毅恒

问的问题很仔细，很深奥， 我喜欢。 但是也必须用一点时间思考了才能好好的回答他们。

跟你们分享该文章的摘录。

"CHASING THE DREAM" - article of me at Goreng Dot Com

"CHASING THE DREAM", Erna's profile of me on the brand new Goreng Dot Com website came out two days ago.

Cinemanila International Film Festival 2010 recap

I'm now in Dubai, took numerous photos and videos. But before I give you all updates of my misadventures there, I'll do a recap of Cinemanila International Film Fest first.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I went to Cinemanila right after the Torino Film Festival/ Film Lab.

3rd of December. I arrived in Manila during the afternoon, I was picked up at the airport. I intended the festival to be one where I could rest, since the Torino schedule was so hectic.

"Well, for tonight, I'll just relax, and maybe catch the SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD screening." I told Raymond, who was picking me up. His day job is actually as a TV writer.

"Oh, I'm afraid you can't do it. The awards ceremony is tonight." Raymond said.

"What? But today's only the second day of the festival!" I was flabbergasted.

"Yes, but they wanted to get the awards out of the way first." Raymond said.

So... that evening, we went to the award ceremony.

Here are the trophies.

The 2nd screening of INHALATION + THE TIGER FACTORY in Tokyo International Film Festival

The TPG meetings from the 26th to 28th of Oct went by in a blur. I think it's much more fruitful than the one two years ago, I got to meet more people, got more input for the project, it was a very educational experience.

No photos though, just a photo of Ming Jin and I, with Dustin Nguyen. In between meetings.