Tuesday, April 19, 2011

WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN wins big at the Houston International Film Festival 2011

Singaporean Director Yong Mun Chee has been awarded Best Director for her film Where The Road Meets The Sun, a story of four men whose lives intersect at a rundown Hollywood hotel, at The 44th Annual Houston International Film and Video Festival in Houston, Texas this weekend.

The film was also awarded the Special Jury Award while the Best Supporting Actor went to Will Yun Lee, who plays a Japanese man trying to erase his past. In addition, the Houston Film Critics Society gave Special Mention to Eric Mabius and Laura Ramsey for their work as the lead actor and actress in Where The Road Meets The Sun.

"We started the evening hoping for one good award and went home with three top honors and more mentions than we could count. It was a wild ride that my team and I didn't expect and it felt great to be a big winner! We are very happy and very thankful that the Houston Int'l Film Festival and the Houston Film Critics Society have been so generous with their validation of our work," says Director Yong Mun Chee.

The Special Jury Awards at the Houston Film Festival are the highest awards for creative excellence in each of the ten major film competition categories: Shorts, Features, TV Productions, Student Productions, TV Commercials, Experimental, New Media, Music Videos, Unproduced Screenplays and Film & Video Production. The Festival WorldFest receives a total of more than 4,500 category entries in all ten
categories and only about 15% of the entries go on to win the Remi Award. The Houston Film Festival is also the oldest Indie Film Festival in the world, and the 3rd oldest International Film Festival in North America. The REMI Award is named after the great Western Artist Frederick Remington, who renowned for capturing the spirit of Texas and The American West with his remarkable paintings and sculptures.

Next up, the film will participate in the 2011 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, set for 28 April through May 7, 2011, before arriving on Singapore shores to premiere at the inaugural ScreenSingapore, 5 to 12 June 2011.

Where the Road Meets the Sun is a movie about four men whose lives intersect for a brief time in the city of Los Angeles. Takashi, a Japanese hit man, wakes up from a four-year coma and moves to LA to escape mysterious traumatic memories. He strikes an unusual friendship with Blake, the hotel manager who still mourns the loss of his wife to an affair he ended up regretting. Julio, an illegal immigrant, works at an Indian restaurant to provide for his wife and kid back in Mexico. He befriends Guy, a young British backpacker who lives off his estranged father's ATM card and sleeps with any girl who crosses his path. The film intercuts between the blossoming of these two friendships. Takashi attempts to help Blake break from his past, but in the process is forced to confront his own violent memories. Julio and Guy hustle for day-to-day survival and forge dreams of a better future, but after Julio steals Guy's passport and sells it, not only is their friendship at stake but also their lives. What follows are the wild times and often gut-wrenching adventures of four men trying to survive both emotionally and physically.

Written and directed by Yong Mun Chee and produced by Big Machine Films, with funding from the Singapore Film Commission's New Feature Film Fund, the film stars Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty), Will Yun Lee (Hawaii Five-0; The King of Fighters), Luke Brandon Field and Fernando Noriega. Golden Village Pictures is proud to be the Singapore distributor for Where the Road Meets the Sun. The release date is yet to be confirmed at press time.

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