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dan koh

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  • Writer: Dan Koh
    Dan Koh
  • 3 days ago
  • 2 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Credits of Stranger Eyes (2024), a film by Yeo Siew Hua
Credits of Stranger Eyes (2024), a film by Yeo Siew Hua

we had just finished shooting Stranger Eyes. it was a very bad time at home for me. Sirin and i had been living together for 2 years, after being friends/colleagues for more than 5. in the last year, she had been going from bad to worse: a break-up, manic-depressive self-hatred, combined with flings, drugs, and drink. we all tried to help her (we really, really did); nothing, obviously, worked.


the nite before she killed herself and arranged for me to find her body, i thought she had turned a corner. there she was, back on the couch (no more crying in her room, no more suicide attempts), typing away furiously—at overdue schoolwork, she told me when i asked (it was her suicide note). we talked about our relationships, difficult families, music. i thought she had returned. she wished me well with my relationship; i went to bed. i heard her outside cleaning the house, listening to Blink-182.


All the small things / True care, truth brings / I'll take one lift / Your ride, best trip / Always, I know / You'll be at my show / Watching, waiting / Commiserating

as a fellow film worker, before she transitioned into social work, Sirin worked as a production assistant on films like: A Land Imagined (Yeo Siew Hua, 2018), Apprentice (Boo Junfeng, 2016), Ilo Ilo (Anthony Chen, 2013). as a producer, she collaborated with the ad companies Lioncat Films, Short Term Girlfriend, and TMRRW. as a line producer, she worked extensively with photographer Shane Mitchell, especially on his book Far Afield (2016). all this in her short 30 years.


after more than a year and a half, i'm ready to say that i've finished crying. maybe even lessened hurting. i think i've learnt to respect her choice, as horrible as it was; a permanent solution to a temporary problem. i know that she lives because i remember her. i believe that she's in a happier place, with lesser or no pain. i shall still love her in my own way.


Stranger Eyes is dedicated to her. she wanted to return to filmmaking for it; schedules and her chaotic life then did not align. i like to think of few audience members, like dedicated ghosts, sticking around to the end of the credits, seeing her name and maybe even speaking it out loud. before darkness how she'd cackle, to be spoken of in cinemas around the world, her name flickering like the shadows of a furious flame that snuffed itself out.


Sirin Yeoh (formerly Sirin Thongudomporn)
Sirin Yeoh (formerly Sirin Thongudomporn)

no one asked, so here are (some of) my fave films of the 21st century not on the NYT list of the 100 "best" (whatever that means) movies, whichcan we be honest?is super 20th century in its Euro-American colonial outlook and lack of imagination and adventure. to be fair, i'm more New Yorker in my taste, and the list's design looks nice.


limited to one film per director, in a rough order of faves (lots on my watchlist, still, of course):


- Ten/ده (Abbas Kiarostami)

- Happy as Lazzaro/Lazzaro felice (Alice Rohrwacher)

- Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

- Fire at Sea/Fuocoammare (Gianfranco Rosi)

- Tropical Malady/สัตว์ประหลาด (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

- Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier)

- All We Imagine as Light/പ്രഭയായ് നിനച്ചതെല്ലാം (Payal Kapadia)

- Great Freedom/Große Freiheit (Sebastian Meise)

- First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)

- A Rifle and a Bag (Arya Rothe, Isabella Rinaldi & Cristina Haneș)

- Black Coal, Thin Ice/白日焰火 (Diao Yi-nan)

- Transit (Christian Petzold)

- Manta Ray/กระเบนราหู (Phuttiphong Aroonpheng)

- Paddington 2 (Paul King)

- Stranger by the Lake/L'Inconnu du lac (Alain Guiraudie)

- An Elephant Sitting Still/大象席地而坐 (Hu Bo)

- Season of the Devil/Ang Panahon ng Halimaw (Lav Diaz)

- Behemoth/悲兮魔兽 (Zhao Liang)

- Distant/Uzak (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

- Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes)

- Baran/باران (Majid Majidi)

- Year Without a Summer/Berkelana (Tan Chui Mui)

- Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier)

- Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly/Babi buta yang ingin terbang (Edwin)

- Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell/Bên Trong Vỏ Kén Vàng (Phạm Thiên Ân)

- Werckmeister Harmonies/Werckmeister harmóniák (Béla Tarr)

- Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy/偶然と想像 (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

- Flight of the Red Balloon/Le Voyage du ballon rouge (Hou Hsiao-hsien)

- Faya Dayi (Jessica Beshir)

- Satan Jawa/꧋ꦱꦺꦠꦤ꧀ꦗꦮ (Garin Nugroho)

- The World/世界 (Jia Zhangke)

- Last Life in the Universe/เรื่องรัก น้อยนิด มหาศาล (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang)

- The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros/Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (Auraeus Solito)

- Ilo Ilo/爸妈不在家 (Anthony Chen)

- To Singapore, with Love/星国恋 (Tan Pin Pin)

- Goodbye, Dragon Inn/不散 (Tsai Ming-liang)

- A Fantastic Woman/Una mujer fantástica (Sebastián Lelio)

- God’s Own Country (Francis Lee)

- Bright Future/アカルイミライ (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

- Nobody Knows/誰も知らない (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

- Osama (Siddiq Barmak)

- The Return/Возвращение (Andrey Zvyagintsev)

- In the Claws of a Century Wanting/Sa Palad ng Dantaong Kulang (Jewel Maranan)

- Clean (Olivier Assayas)

- Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream/Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (Frank Beauvais)

- The Image Book/Le Livre d’Images (Jean-Luc Godard)


  • Writer: Dan Koh
    Dan Koh
  • May 21
  • 2 min read

june 2023: i just had a bad break-up on the road, in, of all places, spain. you and another good producer friend happened to be in madrid for work, and you offered to meet up, despite us only hanging out at film festivals before.


you bought me ice cream, at a cute, pastel parlor. along the cobblestone way, you pointed out cafes that used to be bookstores, Airbnbs that were record stores, the madrid you knew that had moved on from you and vice versa. that long afternoon's combination of sweetness and distraction helped alleviate my pain; also, your prescient advice that i wasn't yet ready to hear.


we talked: about our ventures to europe (yours successful, mine not), your travel magazine-worthy place in bali, films, books, and music we liked and hated, your DJ career, party days, founding of the Q! Film Festival (Southeast Asia's first queer festival), upcoming films (i should have raved more to you about your films; how you nurtured the new generation of Indonesian/SEAsian filmmakers), plans, hopes, dreams, but also contentment.


we said bye-for-now and hugged in a sprawling square; you were off to an early dinner, i was off somewhere crazy, probably. you seemed so small walking away, looking down, going about your own little way. it was like the world didn't know your goodness, the sheer size of it.


just found out you walked away forever as i was the middle of the road. i had to stop. the sky was so blue. sparrows were on their way home. it was like the world got smaller.


goodbye, John Badalu. you weren't anywhere near done with your work and life and happiness, but i'm grateful for your generosity and caring and humanity. missing u, thanking u.


Everywhere I go, every smile I see / I know you are there smilin' back at me / Dancin' in moonlight, I know you are free / 'Cause I can see your star shinin' down on me

mariah carey
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