Video recap of AQERAT at Tokyo International Film Festival

I am now waiting to fly off to India for the Kerala International Film Festival. I haven't been to India for 10 years, so I'm quite excited. I have to say that my previous trip was a memorable one. It was a month, I went to cities like Bangalore, New Delhi, and then going to places like Varanasi, Bodh Gaya etc. to make my pilgrimage. I was traveling with a Tibetan Rinpoche and a lama, I experienced the country in many different ways, from its beauty to its horrors, with images that seared into my mind until now. 10 years ago, I went to India, and after that, to Chile, I was 23. it was 2007. That was the year I met Woo Ming Jin and started a decade of collaboration, that was a year before I continued my studies in 2008. It cannot believe it's already been 10 years even though it did feel like a lifetime ago.

But before India, I would like to share with you all a video recap painstakingly shot by TK Cheng, Aqérat's line producer, assistant director, production designer (yes, he does many things). Throughout the trip in Tokyo Film Fest he had been carrying his camera taking photos, shooting videos, and this then, is a result of his hard work. Just to help us remember. Where would I be 10 years from now if I were to revisit this video again? Just like how I reminisce about my India and Chile trip from 2007? (The Chilean trip, in fact, was written extensively in this blog, it was the first ever film festival I attended as a producer, and it left a deep impression, footages I shot on my DV camcorder during the Indian trip, however, was used to edit a video essay called FLEETING IMAGES.)

Memorable November

This journal has existed since 2004, witnessing my days as a university student in Perth with dreams of filmmaking to the actual embarkation of my filmmaking journey. And thus it has witnessed many of my adventures and greatest triumphs, from my student short films in Murdoch during 2006 to directing a Japanese short film, KINGYO, that got into Venice Film Festival in 2009 to writing and producing Woo Ming Jin's TIGER FACTORY that got invited to the Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Fest in 2010, and then winning the Sonje Award for Best Asian Short Film the same year at Busan Film Fest with another short film, INHALATION.

There are a lot of ups and downs, though I'm sure I don't really write the downs that much.

Exactly a month ago, November 3rd 2017, I received an award for Best Director at the Tokyo International Film Festival, for my latest film AQÉRAT (We, The Dead). My lead actress Daphne Low, who had worked with me since 2013 for the short film FLOATING SUN and then RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS, she received the festival's inaugural Tokyo Gemstone Award, which was for rising stars. That was her first ever award as an actress too!

Since then, the outpouring of congratulations, media coverage etc had been overwhelming.























As I stood on the stage then, it was difficult not to be emotional, firstly because I am aware of the film festival's history, and in 30 years of its history, many film greats had been recognized by the film festival, like Edward Yang and his Brighter Summer Day winning the Special Jury Award in 1991, while the Best Director award in the festival had won by filmmakers like Alan Parker, Yim Ho, Reza Mirkarimi, Guy Ritchie, Taylor Hackford, Ruben Ostlund, Alejandro Innaritu, Wu Tian-Ming, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the Safdie Brothers... to be mentioned with these greats is unbelievable, especially when I try to remember where I was when I saw the films they won their awards for. (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris won for 'Little Miss Sunshine', which harkened memories of my Perth days when I would go alone to the Luna Palace Cinemas in Fremantle, which specializes in arthouse films, with 'Little Miss Sunshine' being one of the films I saw then)

Then I thought of everyone who were part of my journey, from past to present, from Perth to Tokyo to back in Malaysia, teachers, mentors, comrades, companions who were involved in all my films, and I realized how fortunate I was that I have always met the right people who had helped me make worthy films that strengthened my belief in what I've been doing (well, there are some not-so-right people too, but they were rare, and they existed only as cautionary tales... or sources of irritation), with friendship that managed to endure. The connection I share with other people through film is one I cherish immensely, since being in love with cinema was such a lonely thing to do while I was growing up.

I remember in 2004 when I had a camcorder and I wanted to make a short film and one person decided to join me in this crazy quest. Here's to you, Justin. For being my best pal in Perth where we talked about films and literature, and for introducing people of J-Lit like Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, Akutagawa, Junichiro Tanizaki etc. to me. So glad I got to meet up and celebrate with you a few days after the award ceremony.


So, November ended, and Facebook prompted me to remember what happened in the previous month. (after the Tokyo International Film Festival, I went off to become a surprise jury member at the Digicon6Asia a few days after, a surprise that surprised even myself)


It also reminded me of my 10-year friendship with Lesly the Cinematographer, who had been mentioned quite a few times here, having shot my short films like CHICKEN RICE MYSTERY, LOVE SUICIDES, AFTERNOON RIVER, NOW, FLOATING SUN, LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL and finally AQERAT.



I'm afraid of making this post too self-congratulatory. Winning the award makes me grateful, and very humbling, but I still have to remember that I have half of a new film waiting for me to finish! And another new project I'm developing a story for!

Photos from Kampung Bagan Sungai Lima

When it comes to filmmaking, I always have this yearning to shoot it at places I've never been to before. Every new project, we'll have to go somewhere we've never been to before, I think it coincides with my love for traveling.

The past few weeks I've been visiting Kampung Bagan Sungai Lima (the "fifth river" in Malay), the village on this island are mostly on stilts. A quiet sleepy town, where people travel around only by walking or bicycles, it's almost as if I were transported somewhere else in time.

Location scouting

A post shared by Edmund Yeo (@edmundyeo) on Aug 9, 2017 at 12:09am PDT

Ocean of dried shrimps

A post shared by Edmund Yeo (@edmundyeo) on Aug 9, 2017 at 6:38pm PDT

Waiting for a storm that never came.

A post shared by Edmund Yeo (@edmundyeo) on Aug 9, 2017 at 10:40pm PDT

A room with a view.

A post shared by Edmund Yeo (@edmundyeo) on Aug 12, 2017 at 1:03am PDT

Jetty of Five Rivers

A post shared by Edmund Yeo (@edmundyeo) on Aug 12, 2017 at 5:29am PDT

Edward Yang. 10 Years later + Brighter Summer Day cast reunion

The great filmmaker Edward Yang passed away exactly 10 years ago.

That was 2007. I remember it most for being the year I got into the film industry. It was that one year between my return from Perth (late 2006) and my subsequent relocation to Tokyo (April Fool 2008).

5 years ago, to mark the 5th anniversary of his passing, I wrote this post about his films.

In that post, I remembered and chronicled my experiences of watching four of his films.

(in this order)

YI YI, THE TERRORIZERS, BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY and A CONFUCIAN CONFUSION.

On the first time I saw YI YI:

In the course of the film's 3-hour running time, I found myself mesmerized and amazed by the novelistic scope of the film, which seemed to cover every single aspect of humanity in the film. It was an absolutely rich experience, that the film would follow the lives of a typical Taiwanese family in the span of a year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a death, and the middle of it, we see the Father reminiscing his past love with an old lover, the Mother crying over the monotonous everyday life she had led, the Daughter undergoing the experience of first love, and the Son, gradually finding his own artistic side, taking photos of people's backs because he wanted to take photos of things that people could not see.

Just like how the film was subtle in its majesty, my life, in a subtle way, was altered after watching the film, I never realized how much it would impact me.

One particular scene that stood out to me had been a masterful sequence which featured a crosscutting between Father speaking to his old lover about their previous relationship while they were both in Japan, and Daughter, during her chaste first date. I stopped and looked at the sequence over and over, years later I would attempt its editing methods on Ming Jin's film WOMAN ON FIRE LOOKS FOR WATER, and a couple of my shorts.

On the first time I saw A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY:

It was also in 2008 when I saw the 4-hour film A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (1991). This would end up as my favourite Edward Yang film of them all. Again, this was a sprawling tale set in the 60s and revolves around a 14 year old boy. The literal Chinese title was "THE MURDER INCIDENT IN GULING STREET", which was an incident that really happened during Edward Yang's teens, when a teenaged boy murdered his girlfriend who happened to also be involved with a teen gang leader. Therefore, knowing Chinese, what exactly happened towards the end of the film wasn't exactly a surprise, but watching it placed in context of the Taiwanese political environment then, and seeing how it affected the many primary characters in the film (the film had a cast of hundreds of amateurs), gradually consuming and eating their souls, the ending was inevitable.

Interestingly, in that post, I wrote about hearing news of A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY being restored, and how I have yearned to see the film on big screen. That was 2012. I managed to fulfil that dream at Busan Film Festival 2015.

From 2007 to 2010, I only managed to watch 4 of his films.

From 2010 to 2013. I finished the rest of the films from his filmography. MAHJONG, THAT DAY ON THE BEACH, and finally, TAIPEI STORY.

Those old posts I wrote, they are more detailed when it comes to articulating how I felt about the films.

Anyway, in the last few days, as usual, a few film friends on Facebook had been commemorating and celebrating the works of Edward Yang.

I joined in.




And finally, a video from a recent BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY cast reunion. Somehow I can only embed the video and not my post, so I'll include what I wrote on my FB post.

10 years ago Edward Yang passed away. After his death I started watching his films. It was a year after I got back from Perth and a year before I moved to Tokyo.
I started with YI YI, it opened my eyes to the possibilities of cinema. After that, I went to Tokyo, on one afternoon I managed to watch BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY. Life changed. I have watched the film a few times in the past decade, including its restored version on the big screen. Aside from Chang Chen,Elaine Jin and Lawrence Ko, most of the cast members remained in my mind, perpetually frozen in time, looking the way they look in the film.

So it feels so amazing to see this BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY cast reunion!!! Everyone looks so different after 25 years! Especially Cat, seeing him as an adult blows my mind (he's supposed to be in subsequent Edward Yang films but I couldn't recognise him)

Remembering Auntie Tan

Exactly a week ago, I was taking a plane to Langkawi for a wedding. A few hours before I flew off, I paid my respects to Auntie Tan, a dear family friend who passed away the night before.

While I was flying I wrote a post to remember her.

I am writing this while I’m flying to Langkawi for a wedding. It’s one of those pleasant flights where I’m fortunate enough to have an entire row for myself. Too bad the flight is so short.

Right now, I want to write about a very dear family friend who had just passed away yesterday. All these years, I’ve called her “Auntie Tan”. A great friend of my mom’s, a person our entire family had been very fond of.

This morning before going to the aiport, I went to her house to pay my last respects. That was the least I could do. I was going to miss her funeral for a wedding, it almost felt like a dark cosmic twist.

“Always cheerful, always smiling and always laughing, this is how I will always remember you. Thank you.” I said in my heart as I stood before her coffin.

I first met her when I was 15, it was a trip to Hong Kong. It was a momentous Buddhist occasion. A bone fragment of the Buddha was being venerated and exhibited in public. Coming along with my family were two of my mother’s friends, one was Auntie Jennifer, the other was Auntie Tan. I knew Auntie Jennifer before that because her son is a friend from high school (while her other son would later marry my cousin :D ) our connections are quite deep, apparently.

Some of my memories of Auntie Tan, for me, are of the family trips we took over the years, usually for Buddhist reasons. Hong Kong in 1999, a memorable trip to India in 2007. Or the Buddhist ceremonies she would always attend with mom. I remember too the durians she brought us. They are just simple memories, nothing dramatic, but the way she called my name was rather distinctive too. (sounds more like 宇恒／以恒 than 毅恒)

We learnt that she had cancer a few weeks ago. Since then I have visited her a few times. She remained in good spirits, telling me about a niece of hers that she really wanted me to meet because she's studying performance art. Also reminded me that I can just treat her like my own mom.
There’s not more I can say, but also a memory I have of Auntie Tan. It's a memory of a personal loss.
14th of July, 2012. My grandmother died. We rushed to Ipoh, and spent the entire night chanting mantra. My uncles and aunts, my cousins, we were all awake the whole night to give my grandmother a proper send-off.

One of the most unexplainable things about my grandmother’s passing is that I couldn't seem to cry at all. Despite how close I was to her since I was a child. The tears flowed freely from those around me, yet my eyes were so, so dry. From learning news of her death to the funeral to the burial. It baffled me. Was I so numb?

But my memory is inaccurate, just like the above paragraph. Some brief moments tend to linger longer than others.
On the morning of 15th of July, as the earliest light of the sun lit up the sky, we started making preparations for grandma’s funeral. In the midst of this, the first two people to arrive, who drove more than 2 hours to Ipoh, were Auntie Jennifer and Auntie Tan.
When I saw them standing in front of the gate, looking for my mom, I cried then.

(This photo was taken in 2010, Chinese New Year. We were visiting Auntie Tan's house. She was offering me my most beloved pineapple tarts. In the background was her husband Uncle Tan, who passed away not long after this photo was taken. Rest in peace.)

The Starbucks Old Man

I'm now hanging out at Starbucks, supposedly trying to write.

What I'm supposed to write:
New script. A tale of two sisters told through multiple timelines, a merging of past and present, dream and reality. It is supposed to happen in Japan and Malaysia.

What I am writing now instead:
This journal entry.
An observation of an old man seated next to me.

For the past two hours, ever since I came in, the old man had been sitting here, his table covered entirely with newspapers. He had been staring at the papers, but I'm not sure whether he is reading it. He hasn't been flipping the pages, so I'm really curious whether he is reading or staring.

There are two cups before him, paper cups from Starbucks. He was just drinking water, no coffee in sight. He had not been ordering anything at all.

I think I've seen a similar old man in a Starbucks at a different mall, I wonder whether it's the same guy.

I find myself remembering those sleepless nights that I have spent in McDonald's at Tokyo few years ago. I was also writing a script for a film (it was never made).

For a few consecutive nights I saw the same elderly people who hang out there after midnight. Presumably homeless. They would just order a 100 yen drink and spend the whole night there.

I remember an old man who sat across from me, always holding a really thick dictionary-like book in his hands, and constantly wiping the table meticulously, compulsively with tissue paper. The repetition of his movement left me a little distracted.

And thus I find myself experiencing deja vu across time and space. The old man in Starbucks, who is reading but not really reading the newspapers. Who has two paper cups of water put beside a loaf of bread that he has brought over by himself. Who is now in a state of half-asleep and is constantly scratching himself and rubbing his hands together (the air-conditioner is admittedly a little chilly today), occasionally wiping his hands compulsively with tissue paper he had casually taken from the counter.

Merging of past and present, dream and reality, blah blah blah.

Jenny

Whenever I'm in the midst of writing a new script, I often try to dig into my own memories.

Either they are events from my past,
or people I've met,
or something I've read.

It becomes some heightened state of awareness, where I begin remembering things I thought I remember. At the same time too, I wonder whether what I remember had really happened or were they just product of my imagination manifested because of my loneliness.

There's always my memory of a person whose existence I gradually starting to question, as no one else seem to remember her at all.

No sign of her on Facebook (her name was too common).

No memory of her voice as we had never spoken to one another.
(I
was
shy
...?)

My last memory of her was my last day as the president of the English Language Club in high school. I was Form 5 and stepping down, my (handpicked) successor was someone from Form 6. (my choice was either a Form 4 junior whose work ethics I questioned, or a Form 6 outsider, I chose the latter)

I gave a farewell speech. To my surprise, she was in the room too. She wasn't a member of the club, but maybe she was there because she was a friend of my successor? (she was also a Form 6 student) Perhaps she was there to see her classmate take over the club?

I was almost half the age that I am now, and as I (probably) fumbled through the speech, the only feeling I felt then was how surreal the entire situation was. I cannot remember what I've said, yet I remember her seated on the second last row of the classroom. She wasn't paying attention to the speech, which was okay, I wasn't paying attention to it either.

Did I imagine her existence?
Could it be possible that the sheer crushing loneliness that I felt during the last few months of secondary school had prompted me to conjure an imaginary person in my mind?

If she is real, I doubt I will ever see her again.
(Not the luminous eyes nor the (dark brown?) hair tied up in a ponytail,
nor the constant pink flush no her cheeks.)

If she is real, I hope she is happy now.