Archive of films Sell Out! / Sell Out!

Malaysia
2008, 110 min

Section: Another View
Year: 2009

A novice director sought financing for his feature debut. He was given money and creative freedom from a multimedia conglomerate on condition that he shoot a box-office hit. The result is Sell Out!, a satiric musical treating the notion of compromising one’s principles for career and success. The audience hit at last year’s Venice festival.

Synopsis

When Yeo Joon Han went looking for funds for his writer-director feature debut, he got a lucrative offer from Astro Shaw productions, an offshoot of the multimedia conglomerate Astro All Asia Networks. He was given money and creative freedom but he had to make a movie that would be successful at the box office. The musical Sell Out! is the result. It blends the motif of compromising one’s principles for career and cash with a biting satire of avaricious, socially-approved corporations and artists. The film follows two FONY Corporation employees: she is the host of a bottom-ranking arts show; he is a designer who invented a reliable, multifunctional household appliance. The company bosses, however, back other priorities than art and dependability. This entertaining, originally stylized movie voices a targeted, even directly stated, farewell to the worn-out realism which is currently all the rage with festival fare.

About the director

Yeo Joon Han (b. 1969, Seremban, Malaysia) studied law in London, but took a liking to literature and theater at the expense of his studies. Although he wrote a musical, he made his living as a lawyer. In 2006 he shot his first short film, Adults Only. Screened at a number of international festivals, it took Special Mention at Venice, Best Short Film at Stockholm, and the Jury Prize and Audience Award at Lyon. The following year he made the film Girl in a Soap Bubble. His feature debut Sell Out! (2008) is the first-ever English-language Malaysian musical, and an "independent studio” movie. It came about as a small project with a limited budget and nonactors, but it was financed by an offshoot of the multimedia conglomerate Astro All Asia Networks. The film, in which Yeo Joon Han was inwolved in all aspects of its pre- and post-production, premiered during Critics’ Week at last year’s Venice festival.

Contacts

Amok Films Sdn Bhd
, 56100, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
Tel: +60 392 002 232
Fax: +60 392 001 511
E-mail: [email protected]

Celestial Pictures Ltd
Shaw Admin Bldg, Lot 220 Clear Water Bay Road, , Kawloon
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 292 711 68
Fax: +852 224 300 99
E-mail: [email protected]

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About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section:	Another View

Director:	Yeo Joon Han
Screenplay:	Yeo Joon Han
Dir. of Photography:	Eric Yeong
Music:	Yeo Joon Han, Bruno Brugnano, Jamorn Vathakanon
Editor:	Yeo Joon Han
Producer:	Yeo Joon Han
Production:	Amok Films Sdn. Bhd., Astro Shaw Sdn. Bhd.
Cast:	Jerrica Lai, Peter Davis, Kee Thuan Chye, Lim Teik Leong, Lee Szu Hung, Wong Wai Hoong, Hannah Lo
Contact:	Amok Films Sdn Bhd, Celestial Pictures Ltd

www:	www.sellout-themovie.com

Guests

Yeo Joon Han

Film Director, Film Director