Boomtown Beijing interview on “35 mm” Film Magazine Radio Show

Being at the Berlin Film Festival helps me appreciate the difference that a film-literate audience can make to the film making experience

Here is a city where people have attended the festival year after year and over time they have developed the ability to articulate their analyses and insights about film.

Even films from little known places have sold out screenings. The premiere of Invisible City, a Singapore documentary about history and memories, for instance, was packed to the overflowing, with some people sitting along the aisle. From what I hear, other Asian films at the festival are doing equally well.

I have had the pleasure of chatting with quite a few people who have travelled to the festival every year. I have also met individuals who have volunteered tirelessly at the festival for decades.

One of these chance encounters led to an interview about my Beijing Olympics documentary, Boomtown Beijing, on German radio. “35 mm” is regular film magazine show on Radio Dreyeckland in Freiburg, in the southwestern part of Germany.

Alexander Sancho-Rauschel, the radio journalist who interviewed me, also volunteers at the student cinema at the University of Freiburg. The Aka Film Club, or Academic Film Club, has been around for 50 years. It was started in an effort to enable students in post war Germany to watch more international films. Although the name of the club sounds very stern and seems almost archaic in this day and age, it has been retained out of reverence for tradition.

I wonder what the listeners of Radio Dreyeckland will think of the interview of my little documentary about the Beijing Olympics?

One thing, for sure, the passion for film seems to transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries here. So I cherish the hope being a little known film director making a small film in the Far East might actually be an advantage, fuelling curiosity about the project.

Beijing Olympics Film Interview on the China Business Show

I have never given an interview about a film on a business show before. Well, there is always a first time.

The China Business Show is a weekly show on WSR Radio that sheds cross-cultural insight on doing business in China. I am impressed by the range of issues that the show covers, from technology and business strategy to the media and corporate social responsibility.

My big thanks to Christine Lu, executive producer and host, for having me talk about my Beijing Olympics documentary on her show.

For those have you who missed the live show, you can go to the China Business Network site to listen to the interview.

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Beijing Sounds

No matter how good my Mandarin is, I know that the Beijing-er can always tell that I am an outsider (外地人）from my accent.

I spent the best part of 2007, living out of a suitcase in Beijing, working on a documentary about the Beijing Olympics.

For someone from a small country like Singapore, Beijing is a sprawling city and I find that I spent a lot of time in a cab, trying to get from one end of the city to another.

Three minutes into my cab ride, The same question always comes up, “小姐，你是哪里人？”　Miss, where are you from?” The subtext is of course, “You do not sound like one of us.”

In the process of making the film, I have come to a better appreciation of the Beijing accent and the Beijing dialect. While I was working on the sound-mix of my documentary, my Beijing born-and-bred sound engineers will cackle at phrases in my film while the nuances are completely lost on me.

It is great fun therefore to read this blog post, explaining what does the Beijing “R” sound mean?

Beijing Sounds – 北京的声儿 (link via Danwei)

My Beijing friends tell me that figuring out whether to end a word or phrase with the “R” sound, or “儿“声，is an art unto itself. I am sure an entire encyclopedia can be written on the “dos” and “don’ts”.

The outsider often betrays their very foreigness by trying too hard, ending each and every phrase with the “R” sound. As a result, they make a laughing stock of themselves.

What comes intuitively to the native Beijing-er may take a life-time of puzzling out for an outsider or 外地人like me.

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