As many of you already know, we’ve launched a new film initiative entitled INTERPRETATIONS to support aspiring filmmakers. In a nutshell, you make a short film of no more than 3 minutes using the same script we provide (get all the info here). To help us launch, we commissioned several filmmaker friends to make their own shorts using our script and we’ll be featuring each one of them (including a few words from the filmmakers themselves) over the course of the next two weeks.

Today we present I Felt My Life In Both Hands by Hong Kong-based filmmaker Kenneth Bi:

FILMMAKER’S STATEMENT:
Emily Dickinson’s poem I felt my life with both my hands, to see if it was there gives us the idea that one can touch one’s life. Maybe we can feel a shape. Our hands accompany us in all our life changing moments and sometimes have a hand in them. In the shortest storytelling format on film, I wanted to tell the story of a whole person’s life using only his hands. The things he does with his hands, love, hate, work, things he reaches for, the people he touches.

KENNETH

Kenneth Bi graduated with Honors in Theatre/Film from Brock University in Canada. He has written, directed, and acted in Canada and Hong Kong in numerous theatre and film productions. Bi’s script for his feature film directorial debut, Rice Rhapsody, was awarded Outstanding Screenplay by the Taiwan Government Information Office. The film won Bi “Best New Director” at the 25th Hong Kong Film Awards and Sylvia Chang, the Jury Award for “Best Actress” at Newport Beach International Film Festival, as well as being chosen as “Top Ten Chinese Language Films of 2005″ by the Chinese Film Critics Association. His second film, The Drummer was the first film from Hong Kong and Taiwan selected for competition at Sundance where it was named Critics’ Pick by the Hollywood Reporter. The Drummer won numerous Audience Awards from Toronto to Locarno, and has been distributed in over 50 territories worldwide. Girl$, Bi’s latest film about a recent Hong Kong phenomenon of young girls going on “paid dates,” held its world premiere at the 2010 Hong Kong International Film Festival and will be released in the summer of 2010.

For more information on how to get involved with INTERPRETATIONS, click here.

You can also see the commissioned shorts on our YouTube Channel. Not all the films are up yet so keep your eye out for new ones and subscribe to our channel be the first to see them all.