HAF PROFILES


» Lonely Together p10 » Impermanence p10 » Arunkarn p10 » Megurashi-ya p12 » Root Of Love p12


» Like A Flowing River p12 » Soul (working title) p14


» To The End Of Love p14


» We Don’t Need A Summer Vacation! p14


Lonely Together Taiwan Dir: Ho Wi-ding


up two of the main awards at the Taipei International Film Festival and the best new director prize at the Golden Horse Awards last year. The director’s follow-up will combine two of his favourite cinematic tropes — the femme fatale and the road movie. A kind of Taiwanese Thelma & Louise, Lonely Together


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‘The women will be escaping in cars, boats


and trains’ Ho Wi-ding


revolves around Vicky, the mistress of a well-known politician, and the half-Argentinian, half-Taiwanese Ara. When Vicky runs away from the politician with her baby, Ara accidentally helps her escape and ends up fleeing with her. “If Pinoy Sunday is a comic


sketch then in Lonely Together I will try to take the story to a bigger set-up with a grand perspective, to look at two women on the run being oppressed by the system and authority,” Ho says.


Lonely Together’s protagonists are victims of a


materialistic world, says Ho. “Their route of escape will cover landscapes of Taipei, Taichung and Penghu island,” he adds. “They will be escaping in cars, boats and trains and we will have some fighting scenes for the two characters.” The first draft of the script has been completed and the


project has just received $200,000 from the Taiwanese government’s Subsidy for Film Production. Ho and producers Lorna Tee and Sunny Hu hope to find co-production partners as well as the rest of the film’s production budget at HAF. No cast is yet finalised. Sen-lun Yu


LONELY TOGETHER


Budget $1.2m Finance raised to date $200,000 Contact lorna.tee@gmail.com; huchihhsin@gmail.com


n 10 Screen International at Filmart/HAF/HKIFF March 21, 2011


o Wi-ding’s debut feature Pinoy Sunday, about two Filipino migrant workers in Taipei who find an abandoned sofa and decide to carry it home, picked


Impermanence Malaysia-Japan Dir: Edmund Yeo


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rising Asian talent, Tokyo-based Malaysian film-maker Edmund Yeo has created a unique cinematic landscape which encompasses Japan and


Malaysia in a series of acclaimed short films. He is heading to HAF with his feature debut, the Buddhism- influenced Impermanence. Currently at script stage, Impermanence’s story stretches


from South-East Asia to Hokkaido, and follows a Malaysian reporter’s obsessive search for an enigmatic Japanese painter whose work leads people to their deaths — including the reporter’s object of affection. Yeo won awards for his 2008 debut short Chicken Rice


Mystery, and after moving to Tokyo on a scholarship for Waseda University’s film programme, his work began playing major international festivals. Among many screenings, Love Suicides impressed in Paris and Los Angeles while his first Japanese-language short, Kingyo, competed at Venice in 2009. Yeo collaborates regularly with Woo Ming Jin, an


established Malaysian director and founder of Greenlight Pictures, in which Yeo is a partner. Woo’s Tiger Factory, which Yeo co-wrote and produced, screened at Cannes in 2010, while Yeo’s spin-off short Inhalation won the Sonje award for best Asian short film in Busan last year. Greenlight is putting up initial funds for Impermanence, with Woo producing. “I’m pretty excited. I’m looking forward to meeting


possible collaborators and getting invaluable feedback for my project,” says the 27-year-old Yeo. “I won’t deny this is a risky project, but what isn’t? Woo Ming Jin and I have the Malaysian side covered, I just need co-producers and collaborators willing to believe in my vision and not be intimidated by the project’s ambitiousness.”


Jason Gray IMPERMANENCE


Budget $600,000 Finance raised to date $100,000 Contact Woo Ming Jin, Greenlight Pictures, greenlightpicture@gmail.com


ARUNKARN


Budget $500,000 Finance raised to date $140,000 Contact Soros Sukhum, Pop Pictures, bbunghim@yahoo. com


Arunkarn Thailand Dir: Sivaroj Kongsakul


hanging himself in his office, and his own grandfather who died after walking into a hospital and asking for a rest. Based around their lives and deaths, Arunkarn is about two soldiers in their last days with their loved ones. “I’m interested in the life of the soldier,” Kongsakul


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says. “On the outside it seems to portray strength, but inside these men are often very sentimental and soft. I’m interested in this contrast.” Kongsakul’s debut feature, Eternity, won a Tiger


Award at Rotterdam this year. A love story about a spirit who returns to happy moments from his life, the film was supported by the Hubert Bals Fund and Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund. Kongsakul, who has worked as assistant director to well-known Thai film-makers Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Wisit Sasanatieng and Aditya Assarat, has also won awards for his short films at Clermont-Ferrand. “Eternity was smaller in scope because it was about


my family. Everything was written from my memory,” explains Kongsakul. “Arunkarn will be larger. It is about society and our nation. This will be the new challenge for me.” Kongsakul has been developing Arunkarn at the


Cannes Cinéfondation Residence in Paris. The project is at script stage, with plans to start shooting at the end of this year in Thailand’s Pijit Province. Pop Pictures is producing, with Assarat, Soros Sukhum and Umpornpol Yugala attached as producers. Pop previously produced films such as Assarat’s award-winning Wonderful Town and Hi-So, as well as Kongsakul’s Eternity.


Jean Noh


hai director Sivaroj Kongsakul was inspired to make Arunkarn by the death of two soldiers: his girlfriend’s father, who committed suicide by


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