失去愛 – Love Lost (2008)

“失去愛” (LOVE LOST) is the 1st of a planned trilogy of short films exploring 3 different stages of love – losing love, finding love and maintaining love.

This film marks a change in direction for me. One of the things I found in my feature film “The High Cost of Living” is that the narrative structure is too rigid, the story moves from point A to B relentlessly. I wanted to start filming with a looser narrative, where the story is not what drives the film, but the “taste” or “feeling” of the film is what drives it. I also wanted to return to filming more simple and personal stories.

The short film was filmed in Taiwan over a period of 8 days with a small Taiwanese crew of 1st AD (黃原), Camera Assistant (林健德) and the Hair & Makeup Artist (李霓). Cinematography is by my long time collaborator, Siew Yaw Hoong. The talented Singapore singer Faith Yang – 杨馥蔚 (杨孝芬), who was a part of the Regional duet ‘2 Gals’(2个女生) and is now out with her solo album, is the Female Lead. Parts of the film is based on my own experiences in Taiwan. I play the Male Lead because I wanted to experience what my actors go through. It was a tough experience, directing and acting at the same time, but it helped me to understand myself a lot better. This is also the 1st time that I had time to adjust and think about the shots in depth as I was filming, instead of rushing from shot to shot. There exists 2 versions of the film, a 30mins version which I send for film festivals and a 45mins version, which is the version I really like. The film World Premiered at the 32nd Sao Paulo International Film Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Synopsis:

A relationship comes to an end between Wai, and his girlfriend, Faith, who is in Taiwan. Wai travels from Singapore to Taiwan to meet Faith for one last time. It is a last journey of past memories, as he finds shadows of their love and time spent together.

They finally meet for one last time and their love comes to an end. Left alone in Taiwan, Wai seeks solace in a physical pleasure to temporary forget the pain, but he still can’t bear to let go.

Film Festivals participated in or competed so far:

• In Competition: 32nd Sao Paulo International Film Festival 2008, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• In Competition: 16th Chile International Short Film Festival 2008, Santiago, Chile
• Official Selection: 22nd Singapore International Film Festival 2009, Singapore
• Winner “SPECIAL AWARD”: Timishort Film Festival 2009, Timisoara, Romania
• Official Selection: 4th Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival 2009, Yogjakarta, Indonesia
• Official Selection: 5th InDPanda International Short Film Festival 2009, Hong Kong
• In Competition: 13th Thai Short Film and Video Festival 2009, Bangkok, Thailand
• Official Selection: 7th Festival of Nations 2009, Ebensee, Austria
• In Competition: 7th Imaginaria Film Festival, Conversano, Italy

Distribution: Objectifs Films

Website: www.objectifsfilms.com

Sales Enquries: Yuni Hadi (email: yuni.hadi@objectifs.com.sg)