Impromptu photoshoot with young and super talented photographer Nguyễn Bão. He was part of last year's [FEEL] in/out. I instantly loved his work. A great sense of shape, depth, details and colours, and also a genuine connection with what he photographs. On top of that, he's such an adorable boy. I bought one of his photos at the gallery last year.

It's fun to be in front of the camera for a change. I suggested the old building where I filmed scenes from Yet Untitled. We chose an old terrace on the sixth floor, that the older lodgers had turned into a garden.

 

As I was filming Sùng A Lùng dancing, I noticed this old man standing by his doorway on the right at the end of the corridor. He had been discreetly watching us the whole time. In between takes, my friend Nam later went to him to apologise for the inconvenience.

"There is no inconvenience at all!!!" he replied. "I really love to watch you. It's so beautiful!"

I was so moved when Nam told me what the old man said. Perhaps this man never had the chance to go to the theatre and see that kind of performance. Perhaps it was the first time he saw anything like this from so close. Sùng was dancing in silence, to no music at all, but the power and ingensitty of his movements were striking. 

Whatever it was, I was happy we could even if unintentionally offer him that moment to the man. That gives me even more hope and determination to keep on doing developing art projects in Vietnam.

Then I realised that the man would be visible in the footage. After I checked what we had filmed I decided that it was fine. It's just a distant and blurry figure in the back.  

I filmed Sùng dancing in various places of the building: the big hallway, the staircases, the small meandering corridors leading from one tiny room to the other. The place had soul. I didn't have to think what I was going to film. It was as if a voice was directing me and guiding my movement. I had rented the camera for a couple of days. "Why didn't you ask me??? We do lots of shooting at my work, I could have got you one!" Nam said.
It was Nam who thought of the building when I told him what I was looking for. Nam has a curious and inquisitive mind and whether in Hanoi or Saigon, he is always happy to bring to his favourite places. I hope he will have the opporutnity to come to Taipei! He took me to the building a few days before to make sure it matched my ideas. It was just perfect! Some friends of his had a little cafe on the seventh floor. That was where I decided to film the scenes.
When we were finished and about to leave, we saw the old ladies who were sitting and chatting together at the entrance.
"So you young folks are done?" 
We nodded with a smile.
"We you shooting a ghost film? Many people come here to film ghost films. There are many ghosts in this building!" one of the ladies said.
So that must have been what I felt during the shooting. I had made sure to pray and ask permission to the spirit of the place to allow me to film. I had learned my lesson well after all these years living in Asia!

First day in Saigon and plenty of things to do. I finally had a person to person meeting with Ash - the director of The Third Wife. 

I could finally watch the final edit of the film with the most of the music. I was so enchanted, elated, happy to see how far we had gone since the month of April. The film is truly beautiful - and what a relief to see how wonderfully the music worked! 

Next step will be the colour correction in New York next month. In October I will be in the sound studio in Bangkok to attend the music & sound mixing. Then the film is be finished! 

Ash, the producer and I couldn't contain our excitement and enthusiasm.

This first film experience is really taking me from one moment of joy to the next. I'm blessed!

Of course, I didn’t manage to close my eyes, morning flight oblige. Although I didn’t have much to prepare, I still ran here and there, managed to see Lisa and Thomas perform at the Riverside, go to the gym and see Van to hand him the keys of the flat.

Packing shouldn’t have taken long, but I was updating my biography for a project at the same time.

At 3:30 a.m. I considered it silly to sleep, so I started to clean and tidy the house - CD in action, prepare the rooms for two friends who were to stay at my place while I’m away.

Early morning, waiting for the bus, listening to the silence, waiting for the bus and contemplating the beautiful sunrise over the mountains.

I couldn’t believe I was going to be in Saigon in just a few hours.

  

So I will be in Saigon tomorrow at noon. Ten days in this violently exciting city. It's hard for me to process how fast everything moves in my life at the moment. At least I won't be caught ranting about my life being dull... Hopefully the stay will be a smooth and peaceful one.
I already know I will be seeing Ash and watch the latest cut of The Third Wife, that I will be filming scenes for my very first short film Yet Untitled.

With Yoshino

A whole afternoon with my Japanese sister Yoshino in her neighborhood Nishi-Ogikubo. We had been talking about it for quite some time and it only happened today. I had been to Koenji last year with Yuichi and was quite enchanted by the area. Yoshino was certain I would love Nishi-Ogikubo even more.

“I have a present for you, Yoshino said after lunch, but we have to go to this tea shop. I hope they’re there…”   

A jovial, bespectacled man with long grey hair attached in a bun was sitting on a bench in front of the shop.  

”He’s an artist”, Yoshino told me.

The man stood up to greet me with a luminous smile.

”He does cut out portraits. He will do yours. That’s my present” Yoshino added.

I was invited to sit on the bench. The man took out his scissors and a square shaped piece of paper. He was humming and talking to himself as he was looking at me and cutting the paper in quick, precise movements. The result came just a few minutes afterward. Not quite looking like me. 

“It looks more like Chan!”  Yoshino remarked. 

”Not the hair! The hair here is definitely mine!” We both laughed. 

I was nonetheless very grateful for this gift.
Before I left, I was given a fortune cookie. It said “Be carefree in your life”. Exactly what the gods at the BaoAn temple said to me. There is no coincidence. I have to trust it more and more. 

Yoshino took me to a gallery shop displaying local artists’ work, photographs, music instruments, ceramic, CDs… I allowed myself a photozine about Tokyo – maybe I could submit some of my own photos for its next publication…?, antique shops – no, no, no and no! I shall not yield, bookstores – one of them a children bookstore where I discovered the wonderful work of Tada Jun an illustrator friend of Yoshino’s. Strange, but not surprising now to me, when I find myself in a shop and an invisible force pushes me toward a particular item that is to become part of my life. There was no question whether I liked Tada’s work. It not only spoke to me, I felt I had reacquainted myself again with a long forgotten memory. 

We walked up to a park with two large ponds, surrounded by woods. The peaceful atmosphere, the beautiful residential houses, the meandering streets and alleys eased my mind. I was enjoying myself. “Just as the fortune cookie told you” Yoshino said with a smile. 

I was happy to spend this time with her.

A long time ago, her father Masato was having hope Yoshino would marry whether my brother or me. Even if it did not happen, I could feel Masato’s beaming presence with us as we were walking silently on the street of Nishi-Ogikubo.

Le bal des actrices

I just watched Le Bal des Actrices. A French film directed by Maiwenn which catches candid moments of the life of 15 actresses. Looking like a part documentary fiction in a fiction film, part musical, the film is meant to be an ode to female actresses in France with their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, contradictions… and neuroses. Some of the scenes couldn’t help but recall my latest film casting experience for ‘The Translators’. Whether I got the part is still a mystery, but I guess that silence from their side means that they have found somebody else. But who knows? After I did the first test, I was convinced I was so bad that I wouldn’t hear from them and I got a message a couple of weeks later...

‘Le Bal des Actrices’ however touched the main core of all the questions that have been deeply troubling me in recent months, to which the gods of the BaoAn temple gave me the simple answer: to learn to truly enjoy myself because that is simply what I have to do. Watching those actresses in the film, I also had a look at my own neuroses, self doubts, longing for love and recognition, fear of not being good enough – never good enough, the acute awareness of time going by inexorably… I found some consolation in the fact that I am not an actor, so didn’t expect much. But still, the excitement to be cast in a film at this stage of my life was starting to rise to the surface. The one consolation is that experience has hardened me a little more and that I don’t let myself be defeated by disappointment, be it love, work or friendship.

There are always some new music to discover, some new sights to photograph, so new faces to contemplate, even briefly.

I just replied to a message by Jan who is throwing himself in escapism, going out at night and getting drunk, feeling down and guilty the next day, going out again, repeating the same cycle… To learn to enjoy oneself freely, without guilt seems like the hardest thing to do in a world where entertainment and fun consumerism have been turned into the only reward – or salvation, for an otherwise dull and distressing life. But enjoying oneself just for the sake of it isn’t something we are usually being taught, or told to do.  

But I am my best enemy and my mind knows exactly what to do to ambush me and the past year has showed how tricky and skilled I was at creating impossible situations.

I am dropping my old skins. My mind doesn’t want to be naked and desperately tries to cling on them. The process is exhausting.

My stay in Tokyo is a good training.