Reflection /14min / HD / 2007by Ho Tzu Nyen
In 2009, Ho Tzu Nyen’s first feature film, HERE, premiered at the 41st Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival (2009), while his medium-length film, EARTH, was presented at the 66th Venice International Film Festival (2009). His award-winning short films have been shown at international film festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Jeonju International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Bangkok International Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival.
Tzu Nyen is also an artist whose works traverse the fields of the visual and performing arts. He has participated in significant international visual arts exhibitions including the 26th Sao Paulo Biennale (2004), the 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2005), the 1st Singapore Biennale (2006) and the Dojima River Biennale (2009). His next visual art project is an adaptation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical fiction, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which will premiere at the upcoming 6th Asia-Pacific Triennale (2009). His performing arts projects include the critically-acclaimed The King Lear Project (2008), a co-commission by the KunstenFestivaldesArts in Brussels and the Singapore Arts Festival, which Tzu Nyen conceptualised, wrote and co-directed.
He is currently working on his second feature film, Endless Day.
Director's Statement:
Reflections was written by Lafcadio Hearn as a fairytale for children. But like the best fairytales, it speaks most profoundly to the world of adults. Hence this little story about the inability of man to see beyond one’s own reflections is at once a powerful allegory about the eternal differences between man and woman, as well as a powerful critique of the myopia of ideology.
Film Synopsis:
Based on a story by the 19th Century Greek writer Lafcadio Hearn, who settled in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo, this film is a parable about how man is a creature that perpetually cannot see beyond his own reflection.
