The silent treatment

ERIC KHOO ADMITS to being very superstitious. When he decided to go ahead with his latest film, Be With Me, it had to be shot in November because his two previous full-length feature films had been shot that month - even though he'd been told November was not an auspicious month for shooting. 'The temple told me the only auspicious day that month was on the 12th, which is a lucky day for me because three of my [four] sons were born on that date. So that's when we started filming. And then when I found out that the Cannes' Directors' Fortnight was on the 12th ... well, this is uncanny,' says the 39-year old director.

Be With Me, shot in just 16 days, was selected from 799 international films to open the prestigious Directors' Fortnight, which runs parallel to the festival's Official Competition. The famous festival starts today and runs until May 22. Khoo's film will join other Asian interests at the festival, including Johnny To's Election, Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Best of Our Times and the mainland's Wang Xiaoshuai's Shanghai Dreams, which are in the running for the prestigious Palme d'Or.

Cannes will not be unfamiliar territory for the Singaporean director as his second feature film, 12 Storeys, was also presented there in 1997, in the Un Certain Regard category. But selection this year is a whole new ball game for Khoo, who is still supervising the transfer of his high-definition tapes onto 35mm film.

'To be the opening night's film is incredible ... and since it's been announced there's been a real buzz. Distributors have been writing to me asking for a preview tape, totally unlike 12 Storeys, where we were country bumpkins going there trying to sell the film. This time we have Bavaria [Film International], as the world sales agent,' he says.

Be With Me is the first film Khoo has directed in eight years. Shot with a cast of mainly first-time actors, including 62-year-old deaf-mute Theresa Chan and 61-year-old Chiew Sung Ching (Khoo's former English tutor), the 90-minute drama contains just 150 seconds of dialogue. 'I was actually gunning for a completely silent movie, but it didn't quite work out for this one,' he says. 'I believe music and silence are important. With a silent movie, you can really engage the audience in terms of what's happening.'

Khoo credits two major influences on his artistic direction. 'Taxi Driver [by Martin Scorsese] was really the film that threw me into a different landscape where cinema was concerned. One shot really got me going,' he says describing the film's graphic final sequence, while puffing away on his third cigarette.