Walking the green carpet at Tokyo International Film Festival 2011

Yesterday afternoon was the opening of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2011.

Like last year, I got to walk the green carpet again. Awesome!

Death of an old classmate

A few days ago, I noticed a Facebook status of an ex-secondary school classmate.

He wrote (in Chinese):
'Missing a good friend, Yan Chee Seong'

I suddenly realized that it's exactly been ten years since a classmate of mine died in a horrendous car accident when I was in Form 5. That was my last year in secondary school. It was just a month before SPM (to non-Malaysian readers: that's the final government exams we had to take to finish secondary school).

For some people, ten years can feel like yesterday, but for me, more and more, time is turning into something more languid, even ten months ago felt like years, thus ten years felt like an entire lifetime ago. Yet I remembered some details.

EXHALATION screening at Malaysian Shorts (Oct 19, Help University)

Yep, Malaysian audiences can finally check out my short film, EXHALATION, exactly a week before its screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

EXHALATION will be one of the ten short films screened on the Oct 17th edition of Malaysian Shorts in Help University.

More info about the line-up:

Karayuki-san: The forgotten Japanese prostitution era

Been in seclusion the past week to write my screenplay. It's not an easy one to write, so it's been taking a lot of my energies. I have kinda cut myself away from the rest of the world, spending almost every night in McDonald's.

There's no point telling you all that much about it since it's still in its infancy.

Sometimes, I do some heavy researches while I prepare a script (or a shoot). Do a film marathon that could help inspire me, go through books, scour through the net, do some email interviews etc. A lot of excavation is needed.

Back in July, when I started developing the idea for my screenplay, I suddenly stumbled upon a piece of information that actually rocked my world.

The death of a great American bookstore

I read this CNN article, 'The death and life of a great American bookstore' two weeks ago (it's a eulogy for Borders). These few paragraphs summed up best how I feel about a bookstore.

New trailer for EXHALATION

I think its upcoming screening at the Tokyo International Film Festival will signal the gradual end of EXHALATION's run in the festival circuit. The short film has had a good run ever since its world premiere in Dubai last December, much better than I could have imagined. The film was shot in late 2009, (check out the production photos from Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the shoot) and went through a non-stop 40-hour marathon editing session.

It's almost two years ago, but it felt much longer than that. Many of the people from the team had since went on with their lives, going to different places. That's the thing about film shoots, they always feel like a distant dream, fading away as I watch its end results.

For the cast and crew who had helped me so much, the film would never been to all these places without them. So I decided to cut together a new trailer for the film yesterday, perhaps as a way to signify some sort of closing of a chapter.

My short film, EXHALATION, screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

On the day that Tokyo was hit by a massive typhoon, the Tokyo International Film Festival (Oct 22-30) announced its full line-up.

My short, EXHALATION, will be screened at the festival as part of the SUGINO KIKI: MUSE OF THE ASIAN INDIE CINEMA program.