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.

Mieko Kanai 金井美恵子

You might not have heard of the Japanese writer Mieko Kanai (金井美恵子), but she wrote the short story "The Moon" that inspired my short film "LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER".

I stumbled upon her works by accident. It was September 2010. My uncle (father's younger brother) passed away suddenly, my parents, who were in Tokyo with me for my graduation ceremony, had to fly back to Malaysia immediately.

I was left alone in the hotel that my parents were supposed to stay for a few more days. Overwhelmed by solitude, I went to my favourite Aoyama Book Center in Roppongi, hoping to distract my mind with literature.

Going through the shelf, "THE WORD BOOK" by Mieko Kanai, a collection of her short stories, caught my eye. Maybe it was the cover. THE WORD BOOK came out in the 70s, but it only just got translated into English that year.


I flipped through the book, went through some stories, and found myself captivated by the imagery of her dream-like tales. I didn't buy the book immediately, but her words lingered. (I bought the book a few days later on Amazon)

This is the opening paragraph of "The Moon":

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:

楊毅恆 冬天、最后的碎片 北海道短片展獲獎 (中國報) Edmund Yeo's LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER wins award in Hokkaido (China Press, 22/9/2012)

Mom called me this morning as well, to tell me that Last Fragments of Winter's receiving of the award in Sapporo Film Fest is also on today's China Press.

冬天， 最后的碎片」在札幌国际短片影展获奖的事情也被登上中国报了。感恩。

楊毅恆執導短片‧日本獲獎 (星洲日報） Edmund Yeo's Short Film Wins Award in Japan (Sin Chew Daily, 21/9/2012)

Mom called me yesterday morning to tell me that news of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER receiving the award in Sapporo Short Film Fest was on yesterday's Sin Chew Daily.


The entire article (in Chinese only) is here.

Now I switch to Chinese.

LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER receives Japan Tourism Agency Commissioner Award @ Sapporo Short Film Fest

16th of September was my second day at the Nara Film Fest. Aside from having the second screenings of Last Fragments of Winter (sadly, I accidentally deleted the video from the Q and A session) and Tiny Pupil (I might upload that one later), I also revisited some places in Nara that I went to 4 years ago, like the Todaiji Temple.

The 1st LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER screening @ Nara Film Fest 2012

On the night of Sept 15th, my short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER was screened at the Nara International Film Festival.

Nara International Film Festival 2012, I muse about Nara and "Yuanfen"

On the morning of the 15th September, I left Sapporo for Nara, taking the local Japanese budget airline, Peach Airlines, for the very first time.

The 1st LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER screening @ Sapporo Film Fest 2012

An interesting thing about the Sapporo Short Film Fest catalog is that it includes photos of composers too. The only film festival I know which does such a thing, which is cool, film composers deserve a lot of love. So you can see the photo of my long-term collaborator and high school pal Wong Woan Foong in the Last Fragments of Winter entry.

Off to Hokkaido, a place I often fantasize and romanticize

While I am writing this, it is already 4am in the morning. At 11:30am, I will be flying off to Sapporo in Hokkaido for the Japanese premiere of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER in Sapporo Short Fest.

1-minute extract of my short, LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER

The folks at the Sapporo Short Film Fest have posted a 1-minute extract of my short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER on Youtube. The film is making its Japanese premiere at the festival next month, followed closely by screenings at the Nara International Film Festival a few days later. I'm pretty excited to have my film finally shown to the Japanese public.

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.

EMPTY KINGDOM interviews me

The very awesome arts and culture website Empty Kingdom had just posted an interview they did with me.

In this interview, I discuss why I stick with short films, and mostly on my latest short LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER.

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!

2nd Q&A session. LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER/ GIRL IN THE WATER @ International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

On the 27th of January, after being much better-rested, I did the second Q and A session for LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER moderated by Paolo Bertolin. This one's pretty long since a kindly audience member was willing to help me film the entire session!

The entire thing lasted for more than half an hour... which was, er, actually longer than the running time of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (23 minutes), but I trimmed it down to spare your eyes and ears. I talked quite a bit about both short films, anecdotes during the film shoot and many others.

Here's the video.

Talking about the short films LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER @ International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

I got back from Rotterdam yesterday after spending three nights at the festival. Everything was like a blur, my stay there was so brief (last year, I spent a week in Rotterdam before heading off to Clermont-Ferrand for another week). Already, I'm prepping for a short film shoot in the next few days.

Arriving at Rotterdam in the early morning of Jan 26th, I immediately had to prepare myself for the first festival screening in the afternoon. Not a lot of rest there.

Two of my shorts, LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER and GIRL IN THE WATER at Rotterdam International Film Festival 2012

After only a few days in Malaysia to celebrate Chinese New Year, I'm flying off again in less than 24 hours to Netherlands for the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Both my short film LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER (making its European premiere) and another, GIRL IN THE WATER by Danish director Jeppe Ronde and my regular collaborator Woo Ming Jin ("THE TIGER FACTORY", "WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER"), which I helped to produce and edit, will part of the WAITING FOR SNOW IN MY KAMPONG program.