Selamat berpuasa dari Fukuoka, Japan.

Assalamualaikum dan harapnya semua sihat-sihat belaka. Hari ini adalah, hari pembukaan festival filem Fukuoka dan saya berasa amat nervous sekali untuk mempertontonkan filem saya ini kepada masyarakat Jepun, walaupun Sumolah is out of competition. It's been a year since the last time i was in fukuoka and it is nice to be back. Festival filem Fukuoka tahun ini bertemakan 'wanita dan tarian' dan Filem Malaysia yang berada in competition adalah filem Dancing Bells dari Deepak Kumaran Menon. I hope he does well. It will be great for Malaysia.
Fukuoka currently is quite hot and dry but walking down the streets of tenjin in downtown Fukuoka brings back so much fond memories of shooting Sumolah here. The Fukuoka film commission which helped us a lot during the shooting of Sumolah, has invited Sumolah to be presented to the residents of the city of Fukuoka.
Yesterday i met with Mr. Ariga from Touch Planning (himself a film director having recently shot a movie based on a Manga) and he has agreed to be our sales agent in Japan. This is great news for us and Malaysia as it is not easy to get a sales agent to believe in a relatively unknown Malaysian film. Since there is many other forms of deployment of a film besides the cinema here in japan, he believes he can make some headway with our film to also be released on the dvd market which is huge (because there is no piracy in japan) , the internet, broadband tv, video on demand etc. This is exciting news, plus i have also brought some Malaysian movies for him to consider from Mamat Khalid, Ahmad Izham, Bade. I hope to bring more movies in time to come.

Bilik ku yang agak kemas. Amazing.
The Mayor of Fukuoka giving his welcoming speech.
The ballroom of the Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel
Karyawan-karyawan dari seluruh Asia. Festival ini hanya terbuka untuk Asian Filmmakers sahaja.
Gua besama pelakon filem Vietnam 'The White Silk Dress'
Bersama Pegarah dan Producer Jepun bagi filem 'Fuckin' Runaway' (mind my french), Keita Motohashi dan Osamu Yanagisawa
Bersama Festival Director, Hariki Yasuhiro
Bersama Pengarah filem Thai 'Season's Change' Nithiwat Tharatorn
Kyoko my ad-hoc interpreter and Takayama san, what a friendly and funny politician.
The restaurant that i had supper with my new japanese friends.
The many people i've met from the organising committee who have seen the movie, really loves the movie. They actually thought it was very funny. Tonight i had supper with the guy who is running for Mayor of Fukuoka, Mr Takayama Hiromitsu, who seem to have taken a liking to me mainly because I am Malaysian. Most of our conversation revolves around how he is such an admirer of Tun Mahathir and how he loves Malaysia because the people have warm hearts.... hmm.. masih lagi ke?... Are we still like that? Or are we too becoming too money hungry that we have stop being the legendary gentleman of Asia. I will keep you guys updated as the days go by.

Mope power to the people

Afdlin Shauki

Thank you Michi and Tomoko fo helping organise the schedule and also your wonderful contribution to Sumolah. Whatever success it receives is also because of your efforts.

i miss you mia and anais. i want to huggy huggy you and kissy kissy you guys. Mama, what i want cannot write here.