Asian Festival of 1st Films

Thursday, December 07, 2006

All that starts well... ends well

It's over.
Countless hours spent in front of the computer arranging logistical nightmares with precise efficiency; wrangled nerves almost numb from fixing blog bugs(hee hee), buckets of blood, sweat and tears - all went into making this BIG KAHOONA of a festival work not only for themselves, but also to the budding potentials biding to the world for their voices to be heard on the silver screen.

And they did, with a fantastic response too! What an experience for them; from the arduous task of conceptualising the storyboard, to arranging logistics, to actually produce the film with the actors and finally, to win the greatest prize of all: to have their films appreciated by the arts community in various countries. It is not the awards which really matter; it is instead the lessons learned and the momentous experiences gained in the production process which are deemed invaluable. To these first-time filmmakers, you have my utmost respect and deep admiration. Kudos to everyone of you and I wish you the best in all your endeavours! Keep those films coming in!

After 7 days of agonising difficulty selecting the deserving winners for the Festival(hey, every one of them were excellent!), the Jury have finally come to a conclusion and the results were out! But before that announcement can be officially made, here are some of photographs of some very important people, and some REALLY REALLY BIG STARS!!!!

Jesselyn and the big little star of Jonathan!

Jini, Eunice Olsen and Jesselyn. Happy faces there! =D

Erman brimming with excitement next to Gina McKee!

Erman and Angela of Kaiiten.

Kaiiten crew getting jiggy with Cecilia Yip!

Photographer Surya Dhama with the 2 beautiful twins Choy and May! Lucky guy!

Erman and Jesselyn definitely not missing out the fun either! =D

GASP GASP GASP! ahh.. he's not looking my way...

Kaiiten and Anthony Wong!

More Kaiiten and Anthony Wong!

OH YEAH!!! I officially took a photo with Anthony Wong! With his hand on my shoulder!!! weeee!!!!!!

Hey hey! Desmond and Angela getting up close and personal with Cecilia Yip! =)

Shweta and Erman

Sanjoy requesting a toast. Yeah man!

It now gives me the greatest pleasure to thank the people who have made this entire event such a fantastic experience for me.

Teamwork Productions; thanks to Sanjoy, Kartik, Shweta and the rest of the team for showing me the ropes and guiding me along the way. You are the best in what you do and this is what you get: a great team and a very successful event that they can carry proudly on their shoulders wherever they go. Sanjoy, I love your hair. Kartik, don't worry, you still don't look like a Mongolian. Shweta, take a short break; you're working too hard! =)

Kaiiten; thank you Angela, Desmond, Chuifun and the entire dedicated team for making this event an extra-special one. Logistics are a nightmare to me and it still baffles me how you guys can accomplish such a mighty task like this! Just like Teamwork, you guys are made for the job and no one else can do it better than you can! Oh yes... about that group photo with Anthony Wong, I'm going to photoshop my face on everyone of you... highest bidder gets their face revealed. HAHAHA! Just kidding. =p Special thanks to Angela, you have been keeping track of the blog(although you hardly make you presence felt 'cos you didn't tag =p) and keeping me updated on my little errors every now and then. =)

Thanks to everyone else for making this a complete success! Cheerios for now; till next year when we meet again for the 3rd Asian Festival of First Films!

4 comments

4 Comments:

Tag you say? that's new to me...Angela :) haha..but it's great to see so much love and effort put into this site and this blog. let's hope more people get on it and start blogging on their fav asian films!

By Anonymous, at 12:32 AM