As you know I'm in Melbourne for my MIFF screening. Here's how my Day 2 went. It was an important day because my screening was in the evening.
Another crisp clear day in Melbourne, exploring the city.
They have really good coffee in Australia.
I was taking lots of pictures of the architecture. They have a lot of interesting mixes of design all over the city.
As my hotel is right around the Chinatown district, had to get some hot pot!
The tickets for the Animation Screening were completely sold out and only rush tickets were available.
Always on the promotion tip, I passed out my post cards to the people waiting in line to get into the theater.
This was one of the best screenings of my film so far. The audience reaction was even just amazing for my intro speech. My cousin recorded my intro, as soon as I get the video from him I'll post it. I mentioned I was from Canada and told them that it was my first time in Melbourne, and I loved the city. They immediately cheered and applauded. And then I mentioned my film was a kung fu love story and they laughed and then applauded some more. I gave a shout out to my aunt who was in the audience, Mae Anna Pang, who is a senior curator of East Asian art at the National Gallery of Victoria, the biggest art museum and gallery in Melbourne. Her books on traditional Chinese painting had a big influence on my research for the film. And then I plugged my website jonjonphenomenon.com to which I got even more laughs.
The audience responded super well to the film too. It was a filled up, huge theater, so I was a bit tense as to how things would go. But they got all of the references, chuckled and laughed at a lot of the subtle ironies, and then they felt the emotion towards the end. Couldn't have asked for a better screening.
The only other fellow animation filmmaker at the screening, Leanne Lee. She was in attendance with her film The Wolf, the Demon and the Moon, which is a really cool mythological tale about the story of why wolves howl at the moon. She's from Melbourne and it was her world Premiere and she brought her friends and family. There were many critics and reviewers in the audience. A guy named Tim who has been reviewing films at MIFF since 2002 contacted me afterwards. As a seasoned martial arts film lover, he interviewed me over email about the influences that contributed to my film. You can read the interview here: http://blog.timchuma.com/?p=151
And this was me at the post office the next day, as my shameless website plug totally worked. I had 4 orders, of DVDs to ship. Booya!
