I cried this morning...

I wasn't gonna blog until I get to the office this morning, but I had the urge to let out some emotions... just woke up and saw my friend's email, the subject: "you know about edward?"  A vague subject line... so I clicked on it.  My friend, Cyn, she's an efficient emailer, i.e. most of her emails are short and sweet, so all she wrote was, "my uncle told me that Edward died.  Hope you're doing well in HK..."  I immediately knew which Edward she's referring to... the master director and one of my idols, Edward Yang.  I was stunned and suddenly I got tears in my eyes... 

Lots of memories rushed back to my head, how young I was when I watched "A Bright Summer Day" and how it captured my soul... I just started being interested in filmmaking, it was during the time when the Taiwan New Wave was flourishing, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Tsiang Ming Liang and Edward Yang, they really put Taiwanese films on the world map.  I knew little about films/filmmaking, besides the conventional commercial/genre ones... I still remember when I walked out of the theater (the PFA at Berkeley) after watching "A Bright Summer Day", I couldn't speak for the rest of the afternoon, plus I had no one to talk to since none of my friends knew anything about the film or any Taiwanese films at that time... but I couldn't stop thinking about it, and how different it made me feel compared to the conventional commercial films.  That feeling was powerful.  In fact, I remember I couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the week.

I had a rare opportunity to meet Edward Yang two years ago in Cannes.  He was the head of jury for the shorts competition which my film was in.  One night, we had a formal dinner with the rest of the filmmakers and jurors.  Since my producer knew that he was one of my idols, she told me to go up and say hi... I was really shy cos normally I don't do things like that and I don't get star struck... but for some reasons, with master directors, I get really nervous in front of them... plus the fact that he's the head of the jurors, I didn't want him to think that I was kissing his ass... but in the end, I did go greet him and told him I loved his films... and I remember he smiled at me shyly, told me to keep it up and told me that he was working on an animation at that moment... I didn't talk to him for long cos, again, I didn't feel comfortable talking to the jurors... 

I'm lucky to have had the chance to meet this nice and soft-spoken director.  So when I read the email this morning, I couldn't help but have tears in my eyes.

Life is so precious... we're so lucky to be able to do what we love... carpe diem everyone...