Final thoughts on Rome trip and BMW Shorties

I suggest you read the following posts (or skim through the photos I painstakingly took) before you read this:

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 1) - Grand hotels, real Italian pizza and Via Veneto!

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 2) - the EASY VIRTUE premiere with Jessica Biel, the bittersweet fun at the International Rome Film Fest

Rome Day 2 (Pt. 1) - Unforgettable sights during the half-day city tour

Rome Day 2 (Pt. 2) - PRIDE AND GLORY premiere, Colin Farrell hides from me as I walk down the red carpet


Zahir Omar, me, Maha and Ida Nerina outside Grand Hotel Parco dei Principi before departure

It is now the 21st of November, Friday as I'm typing this. 2 weeks had passed since I came back to Tokyo. 3 weeks had passed since I returned to Malaysia from Rome, 4 weeks had passed since I returned to Malaysia from Tokyo to fly to Rome. 6 months had passed since CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY won the two awards at BMW Shorties, and gave me the trip to Rome.

Rome Day 2 (Pt. 2) - PRIDE AND GLORY premiere, Colin Farrell hides from me as I walk down the red carpet

If you're interested, read the following posts (even if you don't want to read, there are tons of beautiful photos) before you read this:

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 1) - Grand hotels, real Italian pizza and Via Veneto!

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 2) - the EASY VIRTUE premiere with Jessica Biel, the bittersweet fun at the International Rome Film Fest

Rome Day 2 (Pt. 1) - Unforgettable sights during the half-day city tour

I think this will be the second last post of my Rome trip. (I'll wrap it up with some final thoughts of the trip and my own experience with BMW Shorties)

I would like to divulge a little secret that not a single soul at the Rome Film Festival knew during the night of the PRIDE AND GLORY (new film starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell) premiere.

Rome Day 2 (Pt. 1) - Unforgettable sights during the half-day city tour

If you're interested, read the following posts before you read this:

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 1) - Grand hotels, real Italian pizza and Via Veneto!

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 2) - the EASY VIRTUE premiere with Jessica Biel, the bittersweet fun at the International Rome Film Fest

(This post is much delayed because I had to look through Wikipedia first to make sure I knew which places I actually visited during my half-day city tour in Rome.)

Our time in Rome was short, only two nights, so it was absolutely necessary for us to see the famous sights, otherwise we would return home in embarrassment. Thus Vijay hired a van for us to bring us around for a half-day city tour. Note that being a half-day city tour, we didn't have the time to enter any of the places, the queues were too long, so we had to make do with snapping photos and continue running to the next destination.

I can't say that I'm a hardcore fan of Roman history, because I didn't really memorize everything about it. But I remember spending hours once two years ago reading about its history on Wikipedia. Did you know that Nero, the CD burning software, is named after an ancient Roman emperor who burned his own city? See? This blog is absolutely enlightening, no?

We passed by the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II) and I was AWED because the architecture was so awe-inducing.

Rome Day 1 (Pt. 2) - the EASY VIRTUE premiere with Jessica Biel and Ben Barnes at the Rome International Film Festival

[CONTINUED FROM THIS POST]

When flying to Rome, I was in a mild state of panic because, while we were all told to bring along DVDs of our BMW Shorties-winning films (just in case we had screen it when attending the Young Directors Project Shorties Presentation at the Rome Film Fest later that night), I brought LOVE SUICIDES (my latest short film) instead of CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY by accident.

I was resourceful (when you're a disorganized and forgetful person, you'll end up learning how to clean your own crap), and came up with all kinds of methods to remedy this problem ever since we stopped briefly at Dubai for transit. I swiftly asked my sister to upload the ISO file onto Yousendit so I could download from there and burn a copy. Unfortunately, my resourcefulness was defeated by the ever unreliable Streamyx, and it was impossible for her to upload a 1GB file online without facing non-stop disconnections. I guess I've been pampered by the insane Internet speed in Tokyo, where it would take only ten minutes (or less) to upload a 1GB file.

In the end, knowing that I didn't have CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY with me, I was somewhat distraught, but told myself that LOVE SUICIDES was probably more suited for European sensibilities etc. anyway. It would be impactful to see a short film with devastatingly heartbreaking scenes of a mother force feeding her cute little daughter:

Waiting at the Dubai International Airport

I've reached Dubai.

Currently waiting at the gate. People are boarding onto the plane now.

The Dubai International Airport's pretty awesome.