TORONTO STORIES is a movie I collaborated on with three filmmakers, Aaron Woodley, David Weaver and Sudz Sutherland. We each wrote and directed a chapter in the feature movie. The unfolding stories occur the same day in Toronto when a boy goes missing. My chapter is, "The Brazilian". I also act in it with my pal, Tygh Runyan. If you live in Toronto, be sure to catch the premier one week run of TORONTO STORIES when it hits the Royal Cinema, 608 College Street, beginning December 12 at 7PM. Here's the Trailer! xo!sook-yin
MY DREAM COME TRUE:
Guess what? I'm making my movie! Starting Monday November 24, 2008, I'm directing my first feature film, YEAR OF THE CARNIVORE, in lovely Maple Ridge, B.C. YEAR OF THE CARNIVORE is a coming-of-age-romantic comedy. Once again I find myself returning to a story about the difficult search for love and connection. (Thank goodness for art, it keeps me sane.) The money's been raised, the stars are cast and now I'm on my way. I'm learning a lot. Normally I make little movies with my friends in our houses, but this is a much larger undertaking, we even have a transportation unit and a prep facility with a parking lot attendant who operates a gate!
I can't yet reveal who the actors are until all the leads are confirmed, but I must say, this cast rocks. My crew is top notch too. After years of writing the story, I can't believe it's actually becoming a reality. I'm excited and I'm scared. It's one of the biggest challenges of my life. I was talking to my best friend Jooj the other night, when he gave me this simple advice: MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.
So that is what I aim to do.
xo
Sook-Yin
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Hi, I'm Sook-Yin. I make movies, I write stories, I act in my friends' films. I'm a swimmer, I'm a bicyclist. I've never had a driver's licence. Of all the ways to communicate, singing is one of the few times I can stop thinking (phewf.) I find it very difficult to describe my music. When people ask I say, "Plump with freckles."
One time I found a plastic plumbing tube in a construction site and my first impulse was to press it against my lips and blow! Out came a most unearthly sound, like a whale crossed with a trumpet! The last sound to arrest me, was on a trip to New Orleans. A homeless man walked up and asked me for some money. I could hear the cracking sound of his bones.
When I was a teenager I used to scream a lot of didactic political punk songs. These days I mostly sing about love in all of its wonderful-horrible beauty.
I've posted 4 songs on myspace. The first, "Lunar Lament" uses a wheezy old children's keyboard I found at the Sally Ann for five bucks. You may have heard my pal Neko Case cover my song,"Knock Loud". The version posted here is the original. "Born Free" is my interpretation of a song from the 1974 movie of the same name, about an orphaned lioness cub in captivity. And finally on, "Sweet Dreams, Get up!" my friend, alternative cartoonist Joe Matt (Peepshow) played the keyboards.
I work at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation on CBC Radio 1. I host an irreverent pop culture radio show, DEFINITELY NOT THE OPERA that is a personal spin on what is going on in the world! It's on Saturday afternoons at 1PM across Canada. In the US you can hear it on Sirius Satellite Radio 137, or streaming on your computer. Go to www.cbc.ca/dnto to download podcasts, videos and stuff.
Here are five videos I made with my friend filmmaker Andrea Dorfman for DNTO. The first one is a music video for BEAUTIFUL, a song I wrote for the Shortbus movie soundtrack. Awesome Owen Pallett from Final Fantasy wrote the lovely DNTO theme song. The final video is a locket sized portrait of my pal Mark Hartmaier. We had a lot of fun making these vids, which just goes to show; HOME MADE + LOW BUDGET =FUN!
thank you for the add-on !! i really like all your videos. i don't know which one i liked best. probably the music vid one ('beautiful') very weird & eccentric. not sure what it means. i like your music, too. -- cheers! ^___^
Thanks Sook-Yin! Congratulations on "Toronto Stories"! Saskatoon has the Broadway Theatre: I always watch their sched for Gems like this. Best wishes with "Year of the Carnivore". Concerned Sask citizens have been thrown into the unorganized fray of reacting to the government's "Uranium Development Partnership" report on Nuclear Power, upgrading and waste storage. Can you believe that anyone thinks of "Nuclear Waste Storage" as a business opportunity???? We, the more suspicious citizens, watch for done-deals, backroom deals, fast-tracking, short-cutting etc. Stories: Bruce Power attempting to buy land and sign contracts with IBEW. Rumors: northern chiefs being told that they must take the waste...put it back where it orginally came from ..in the ground/the mines. Trying to decipher, holding to the mirror, hustling to bring the "concerned ones" to Public meetings...so conveniently held at seeding time, a time of the tilling of the land; gardening of the garden, stopping to smell the flowers, watch the Stanley Cup, grandkids's soccer and baseball, golf, grad and going to the lake!! Hell, these hearings re: an industry that will impact the youth most...up to 250,000 years from now...are held right in the middle of Highschool exams...AND...when University students are gone to summer jobs, every one!! Wish us luck! I fear we concerned ones are only operating on luck! Best wishes Sook-Yin!! Think of us in Saskatoon on June 15, 7pm when we assemble for our Public Hearing.
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