Had been trying to upload the videos from my screening Q and A sessions in International Film Fest Rotterdam the past few days, but they're taking quite a while to compress.
So I'll just share an article with you about EXHALATION that was on Cinema Today yesterday (which was then syndicated on MSN and Yahoo). Click the link below!
I always have an obligatory McDonald's breakfast meal before a flight. The Mega McMuffin owns. So, when I arrived at Narita Airport, I had it again.
I then slept through more than 7 hours of my 11 hour flight to Amsterdam. Waking up only for the two meals, and watching I AM LOVE, starring Tilda Swinton (it was in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2009, the same year Kingyo was shown).
Nice film.
I then caught maybe half of MEGAMIND, but got interrupted when the plane arrived at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam.
A car picked up and took me to Rotterdam, it was a 1-hour journey.
When I reached the main film festival building, I picked up my bag, and ensured that the press desk was covered with promotional items for THE TIGER FACTORY and EXHALATION.
Chinling, one of the festival programmers, brought us to the Wuxia-themed WATER TIGER INN, where me, Matthieu (Bratislava Film Fest director, and many others) and Jessica Kam (PIANO IN THE FACTORY producer) could have a quick bite.
It was to my amusement that after serving us drinks, the waitress got into a heated encounter with a beggar who just walked into the place. And then they got into some martial arts stuff, and me and the customers were instantly turned into extras of a wuxia film!
It's funny, realizing that this will be the first time when I'm actually not returning to Malaysia for Chinese new year. Even all my years in Perth, and the past few years in Tokyo, I always managed to be at home for the reunion dinner and all.
For this year's, I'll still be in Rotterdam. Perhaps I'll be celebrating it with other filmmakers in some Chinese restaurant over there, if I'm not wrong, there's also gonna be a screening of The Tiger Factory on either Chinese new year eve, or the first day itself.
Perhaps I myself should try to catch a Chinese film or something cheerier as well at the film festival. I'm superstitious, I wouldn't want to watch dark depressing films of woe and death to start my Chinese New Year!
In exactly 12 hours I'll be flying off to Rotterdam. Aside from my own short film EXHALATION, I'm also there for Ming Jin's THE TIGER FACTORY, which is the feature film spin-off of my short, INHALATION (hah). Since he can't make it to the festival, it's all up to me to handle his Q and A sessions as well after each screening. Fun.
Less than two days left before I head off to Rotterdam International Film Festival, so pardon the onslaught of EXHALATION stuff here.
While preparing an EXHALATION press kit for the festival last week, I enlisted the help of Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow's Marc Saint-Cyr to conduct a short interview regarding the film.
I'll share an exchange from the Q and A regarding why I alternated between black-and-white and colour in the film.
MSC: How did you decide which sequences in the film would be in black-and-white or color?
EY: The black-and-white, was, in fact, a last-minute decision made during post-production. I remembered reading an interview with Andrei Tarkovsky where he pointed out that a black-and-white film immediately creates the impression that your attention is concentrated on what is most important. On the screen, color imposes itself on you.
In order to underline the melancholic undertone of the film, I decided to drain most scenes of their colors. I inserted colours in certain scenes when I needed to accentuate the emotional states of the protagonists. A feeling of brief warmth, or lingering sadness, or an abrupt break from monotony. In the end it was an experiment of sorts for storytelling.
(UPDATED: The Tarkovsky interview I was referring to is here.)
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.
![[Exhalation] Naoko (Kiki Sugino) and Sayuri (Tomoe Shinohara) brooding](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vHHNimOjNQ8G3_JIwdxxj8oCxRn-tjXiqYOsQpv879Zz7Aq-VMPpybqrwh1yfh4_LlPs4lzy_GpVWLnzuJmjUg5WxSaUCT7-g-UwQdEsPAnaRvXhs5lMukhtI0UfAzIGQ=s0-d)
![[Exhalation] Sayuri (Tomoe Shinohara) contemplates as Naoko (Kiki Sugino) is asleep](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uBCvKC-AOBKS9seeGVPIfuHDJTCtlLKT0rH1SAXLbkkf3H3AxKCSJqDmC81Wb9ezWUtXC4auPyZ9Z4tVC1zK8FjMY1U-CrGR7bPzxtL4kAJKTLilXWF0XsryNGmksKw8I=s0-d)
