ECHOES

ECHOES 2004 20 mins
Directed by: Patrick Lim
Screenplay by: Jennifer Liew
Genre: Psychological supernatural drama
Starring: Deanna Yusoff

Synopsis
ECHOES is about memories and their illusions, reflections, its resonance, rupture of time and the question of truth.

Julia works late in her office one night and she starts to see things. An encounter with her two colleagues earlier is repeated before her eyes, a mysterious woman who walks pass her without responding to her and a little girl in black dress with black balloons. What is happening to Julia?

Excepts from the script

FADE IN

CAPTION

IN THE BEGINNING...
Fast cut of a LONG and NARROW CORRIDOR, deserted and silent

...THERE WAS NO EXISTENCE OF...
Fast cut of another similar looking corridor, yet somehow different.
...TIME...

A CREEPY looking SEMI-OPENED HALLWAY, the night wind is whistling.
VERY SLOW FADE OUT

FADE IN

1. INT. - STAIRCASE - LATE NIGHT
One of the lights at the corridor flickers. The upwards-staircase remains empty. A faint smoke emits from the astray standing at one corner of the staircase. The leaves from the plants in the pots swaying a little due to the night breeze. We turn a corner into the door to the office.

CUT TO:

2. INT. - OFFICE - LATE NIGHT
The office is almost dead quiet. The only faint sound that can be heard is a slow humming of air conditioning from afar. The paintings from the walls are faces of human starring right back at you, with almost fiery eyes that one can hardly decipher at this time of the day. All lights are out except for one wing at the far end. We pass rows of cubicles at both sides but they all look almost identical under such darkness. As we move closer towards the light, we see JULIA working at her desk.

When Patrick told me about his idea for this short film back then, I was fascinated by the subject matter, but most of all, we were intrigued by the fact that we could experiment with the fragmented structure of the story itself, and how the story is told and presented. I have always loved to try something different.

I remembered the writing process was quite an interesting one.

It took me about a month or so to finish it. Of course, from there, more re-writes. If anyone had seen the short film, the opening itself is slightly different. That's the best things about films - they are so organic and forever evolving and changing. It was a good learning experience for me. It is in fact, the first Malaysian short film shot on HD format. The entire project was funded by MDC. We sincerely thank them for making it happened for us.

We had mixed reviews for the film, whenever we screened it, but one thing is for sure, we are glad that we took that journey and that one step forward in our filmmaking career and we are proud of that. Making films is never an easy task, given the fact that you need to face realities in life, the questions of do you stick by your passion or do you need to do something more substantial to support a family of four (that is always a tough decision for my husband to make, therefore, I do admire him for his tenacity and courage) but we would stick to our passions till the end of the world, even though it means giving whatever that we have got in us.