Eric Khoo's new movie....... "Be With Me"
Call it a grand return. Eight years after his last movie, Eric Khoo has returned with a film about love and hope - his third after Mee Pok Man and 12 Storeys - and it has scored him an immediate world premiere.
Be With Me has beaten 799 international entries to open the prestigious Director's Fortnight category at the Cannes International Film Festival this year.
Other films which have been accorded this honour include Lee Ang's Eat Drink Man Woman (1994).
Mr Kenneth Tan, managing director of cinema chain Golden Village and chairman of the Singapore Film Society, says Khoo's Cannes coup is 'like having a Harvard MBA'.
Director's Fortnight's artistic director Olivier Pere told Life! in an e-mail interview that Be With Me was his 'first and final choice' for the opening film.
'It is a very sensitive, very emotional and very universal piece of art and cinema, perfect for an opening screening of a big international festival,' Mr Pere adds. He watched the film while on a talent-scouting trip in the region a month ago.
The Director's Fortnight runs parallel to the main Official Competition - the heart of the festival where movies compete for prizes like the Palme d'Or (Best Film) - but is a festival highlight because it is seen as being more daring and edgy than the latter.
So Khoo, 39, can now count himself among Fortnight's alumni, which include Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Japanese auteur Nagisa Oshima.
Be With Me was, in fact, also invited for screening in another Cannes category, Un Certain Regard.
But Khoo was forced to choose between the two. 'It was a tough choice,' he says.
Be With Me - which has already been snapped up by a major European distributor - will be Singapore's only second full-length feature film to be invited to Cannes.
The first, 12 Storeys, is also one of his. It was screened at Cannes in 1997.
The only other Singaporean to have had her film screened at Cannes is film-maker Tan Pin Pin. However, her Moving House (2001) was a short, not full-length, flick and was shown only at a Cannes fringe event.
No need to celebrate
Still, when Life! met Khoo and his close journalist friend Wong Kim Hoh - who co-wrote the script for Be With Me - for breakfast at the Goodwood Park Hotel last week, they seemed to be taking the triumph in their stride.
They will fly to Cannes on May 10 for the film's opening on May 12 (see other story).
'We spent too many nights drinking up to three bottles of wine a night while working on this film, so I don't think there's any need for celebratory drinks now,' says Khoo cheerily, in between wolfing down bacon and egg.
Indeed. Truth be told, the film would never have been made if he had not snapped out of his procrastinatory stupor.
Since 12 Storeys opened in 1997, he has only lent his name to film projects, turning producer for everything from Liang Po Po - The Movie (1999) to Zombie Dogs (2004).
He has also been grooming young film talents such as Royston Tan, who made the criti cally-acclaimed movie 15.
But directing a full-length film? Not a single frame.
Still, ideas were a-popping in his mind and he broached the idea of making a movie about hope to Wong in 2002.
They worked on several drafts, even tackling things like capital punishment.
It was his chance meeting with 62-year-old Theresa Chan at a wedding in 2003 that proved pivotal for his new film.
Chan, who lost her sight and hearing to meningitis when she was in her teens, still managed to travel the world and learn English in the United States.
Her zesty nature and unbridled love for life helped him refine his film idea and reinforce hope as a theme.
'We had the whole tapestry in place, save for that missing piece, that central motif. Theresa was it,' he says.
But Chan not only played herself eventually in Be With Me, she also jolted Khoo back to his senses as a film-maker.
'She was sending me gifts like a Parker Pen with my name engraved on it and a Citizen watch to tell me to get started on writing the script as time was running out,' he adds, with a laugh.
The script was cobbled together within two months, and filming finally commenced last Nov 12.
It was shot in 15 days with digital cameras and, with the help of post-production house Infinite Frameworks, had a trim budget of $200,000.
Save for MediaCorp actresses Lynn Poh and Ezann Lee, the cast is a line-up of fresh faces.
Among them is Chiew Sung Ching, 61, Khoo's former English tutor, whose understated performance as a grieving widower is one of the film's highlights.
The result? A poignant look at love at different stages of life, from crushes to losing loved ones in the twilight years.
Mr Raphael Millet, the cultural attache to the Embassy of France here, says he likes the film because it is open to many layers of interpretation: 'Khoo asks many questions, but does not give the answers. He leaves space for the audience to find out things on their own.'
Right now, Khoo is just glad that, with Wong's help, his latest film is out after so many false starts.
He says with a laugh: 'We've had many miscarriages along the way. We finally conceived, and everybody loves the baby.'
