Edmund Yeo
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Edmund Yeo (born 6 March 1984, in Singapore) is a Malaysian
film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
,
screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...
and
film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...
. He first received international acclaim in 2009 when his Japanese-language short film, Kingyo, premiered at the
Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...
. Since 2009, Yeo has written and directed fourteen short films and feature films to date and has won international awards, including the Best Director Award at the
Tokyo International Film Festival The is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biennially from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter. Along with the Shanghai International Film Festival, it is one of Asia's competitive film festivals, and is considered to be the ...
for Aqérat (We, The Dead) in 2017.


Early life

Yeo was born in
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
. His father,
Eric Yeo Eric Yeo Oon Tat (17 July 1936 – 15 March 2015) was a Singaporean water polo Water polo is a competitive sport, competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in whi ...
, is a film critic and a former exec of
Polygram Records PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...
, where he produced the albums of the band Alleycats. His mother, Chik Soon Come, was a pop singer. Yeo moved to
Petaling Jaya ) , website = , image_skyline = , image_caption = ''From top, left to right:Skyline of Petaling Jaya, the 1 Utama Mall integrated with Bandar Utama Station, the Kota Darul Ehsan arch, the Petaling J ...
, Malaysia with his parents when he was 2. He completed his Bachelor in Commerce at
Murdoch University Murdoch University is a public university in Perth, Western Australia, with campuses also in Singapore and Dubai. It began operations as the state's second university on 25 July 1973, and accepted its first undergraduate students in 1975. Its n ...
in
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
in 2005, majoring in Marketing and minoring in English Literature. Yeo then chose to enrol in a one-year graduate diploma course in media production at the same university.


Career

In 2007, Yeo joined Greenlight Pictures, the production company of Malaysian filmmaker
Woo Ming Jin Woo Ming Jin is a Malaysian film director, writer and producer. His films have screened in film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and Venice. He is also the co-founder of Greenlight Pictures, a film and television production house based in Kuala Lu ...
, and took over producing and editing duties for Woo's film The Elephant and the Sea during post-production. Yeo began writing and directing short films in 2008. His first short film, ''Chicken Rice Mystery'', was made in March 2008, just before he moved to Tokyo to continue his Masters (and later, a
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
) in
Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...
. The short received a Best Acting Performance award for its lead actress Kimmy Kiew, and also an honourable mention at Malaysia's BMW Shorties 2008 from a jury that included Filipino filmmaker Raymond Red, Malaysian filmmaker Tan Chui Mui and actress
Ida Nerina Ida Nerina binti Hussain (born 13 January 1964), better known by her stage name Ida Nerina, is a Malaysian actress, producer and director. Biography Ida Nerina's career in TV and films began in the early 1990s. In 1992, she was nominated f ...
. A few months later, Yeo made an experimental short, ''Fleeting Images'', a homage to
Sans Soleil ''Sans Soleil'' (; "Sunless") is a 1983 French documentary film directed by Chris Marker. It is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory, and how, as a result, the perception of ...
by French director
Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), ''A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''S ...
. The short won the Grand Prix at the 6th
CON-CAN Movie Festival CON-CAN Movie Festival (CON-CAN) is an audience-interactive online international short movie festival which aims to “discover hidden creative talent from all over the world, enabling image creators and a global audience to share the underlyi ...
in 2009 from an international jury headed by Japanese filmmaker
Naomi Kawase is a Japanese film director. She was also known as , with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including ''Embracing'', about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and ''Katatsumori'', about ...
. He began rising to prominence in 2009 by writing and directing ''Love Suicides'' and ''Kingyo'', two short films loosely adapted from the works of
Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal an ...
. ''Love Suicides'' had its world premiere at the
Festival Paris Cinéma The Festival Paris Cinéma is one of the most recent French movie festivals, started in 2003 in film, 2003. It is held annually in July. It was launched in 2003 after the municipal government withdrew funding for Festival du Film de Paris.Staff repo ...
2009 and won the Best Director award at the China Mobile Film Festival 2009. ''Kingyo'', his first Japanese-language short, was selected for competition at the
66th Venice International Film Festival The 66th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was held from 2 to 12 September 2009, with Maria Grazia Cucinotta serving as the festival's hostess. The opening film of the festival was '' Baarìa'' by Giuseppe Torn ...
and won at Larissa Mediterranean Festival of New Filmmakers. Yeo was the youngest Malaysian filmmaker to ever compete in the prestigious film festival. ''Kingyo'' later received the Silver Grand Prix and Best New Creator awards at Japan's Eibunren Awards 2009. At the same year, he produced and edited Woo Ming Jin's Woman On Fire Looks For Water, which was also screened at the
66th Venice International Film Festival The 66th annual Venice International Film Festival, held in Venice, Italy, was held from 2 to 12 September 2009, with Maria Grazia Cucinotta serving as the festival's hostess. The opening film of the festival was '' Baarìa'' by Giuseppe Torn ...
. In 2010, Yeo produced, co-wrote and edited Woo Ming Jin's ''The Tiger Factory'', which premiered at the
2010 Cannes Film Festival The 63rd Cannes Film Festival was held from 12 to 23 May 2010, in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, hailed as being one of the most recognized and prestigious film festivals worldwide, was founded in 1946. It consists of having films scr ...
. He directed numerous short films of his own on the same year. Yeo was one of the eight filmmakers for
Prada Prada S.p.A. (, ; ) is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding t ...
's Yo Video! Project, directing a one-minute short film called ''NOW'' that was streamed on Prada's official website. Yeo also directed a short film spin-off of ''The Tiger Factory'' called ''Inhalation''. A heavily improvised work adapted from a two-page script, ''Inhalation'' won the Sonje Award for Best Asian Short Film at
Busan International Film Festival The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festi ...
. The film was played together with ''The Tiger Factory'' at certain festival screenings, like Vancouver, Tokyo, Jakarta and Cinemanila International Film Festivals. His short film ''Exhalation'' premiered in competition at the
Dubai International Film Festival The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF, ar, مهرجان دبي السينمائي الدولي) is the leading film festival in the Arab region. The 12th edition of DIFF took place from December 9 – 16, 2015. In 2018, the DIFF announce ...
and screened at the 40th edition of the
Rotterdam International Film Festival The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1972, it has maintained a focus on independent and experimental fi ...
. In 2014, Yeo's debut feature film '' River of Exploding Durians'' premiered in competition at the
Tokyo International Film Festival The is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biennially from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter. Along with the Shanghai International Film Festival, it is one of Asia's competitive film festivals, and is considered to be the ...
. It was the first ever Malaysian film to be invited to the main competition section of the festival. He returned to Tokyo International Film Festival in 2017 with two films, his sophomore film '' Aqerat (We, The Dead)'' in main competition, and a documentary '' Yasmin-san''. He won the Best Director award for ''Aqerat (We, The Dead)''. His 2020 film, ''Malu'', is a Japanese-Malaysian co-production starring Malaysian and Japanese actors like Sherlyn Seo, MayJune Tan,
Masatoshi Nagase is a Japanese actor. He is best known in the West for his roles in Friðrik Þór Friðriksson's '' Cold Fever'' and Jim Jarmusch's ''Mystery Train''. Nagase was described by Todd Brown of Twitch Film as "one of the great unsung heroes of Japane ...
and
Kiko Mizuhara Audrie Kiko Daniel (born October 15, 1990), known professionally as , is an American-born model, actress, singer and designer who has lived in Japan since childhood. Kiko Mizuhara started her modeling career at the age of twelve when she entere ...
.


Filmography


Director


Producer


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yeo, Edmund Malaysian film directors Malaysian people of Chinese descent Malaysian film producers 1984 births Living people