{"id":626025,"date":"2026-10-10T03:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626025\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T03:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:12:09","slug":"anthony-chen-backs-ai-grief-dramedy-at-busan-asian-project-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626025\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Chen Backs AI Grief Dramedy at Busan Asian Project Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA widowed programmer who builds a digital copy of his late wife ends up turning grief into a business in \u201cTalk to Me When You Are Dead<\/a>,\u201d the debut feature from Singapore\u2019s Alvin Lee, produced by Anthony Chen<\/a> and Gina Tan. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe project is part of the Asian Project Market<\/a>, which runs within the Busan International Film Festival<\/a>\u2019s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the near-future story, Yong Yi makes a digital replica of his wife Kate to cope with losing her. A friend spots a market and talks him into a startup that sells grief-bots to the newly bereaved. Yong Yi is then hired to quietly build a replica of Mr. Yun, a celebrated architect who is terminally ill. Hiding his real purpose to get close to him, Yong Yi records Mr. Yun\u2019s memories, and the two grow into something like father and son. As Mr. Yun weakens, Yong Yi must choose between finishing a well-paid job and protecting a fragile man he now cares about, a crisis that finally makes him face what really happened to Kate. The project is pitched as a black dramedy that probes the line between real connection and digital preservation.<\/p>\n

\n\tLee began the film while grieving his best friend, who died four years ago. While he was writing, a relative asked him to create an AI-generated video of someone the family had lost. \u201cI made it, and it gave real comfort to people I love, and I still do not know what to think about that,\u201d Lee says. \u201cThe person in it was not really him, but the comfort it created was real. That contradiction became the starting point of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLee says he hopes audiences leave with a sense of hope and a reminder to hold on to their humanity as technology floods everyday life. \u201cWe can also live in comfort and denial, but many times the pain that breaks us is part of us, and vital to our growth. That is what makes us human,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter several years in development, the script is now in its third draft.<\/p>\n

\n\tChen, who has tracked Lee\u2019s short films since Lee was in film school, worked with him on shaping his first feature. \u201cIt has taken a few reiterations before we landed on this idea and I\u2019m heartened that it comes from a personal place yet has wide universal appeal,\u201d Chen says.<\/p>\n

\n\tTan, who met Lee five years ago on joining one of his shorts, praises the light touch he brings to a range of subjects. \u201cHe does not flinch from the hard things, but he never lets them become heavy-handed. That sensibility is precisely what \u2018Talk to Me When You Are Dead\u2019 demands, and precisely why he is the right person to make it,\u201d Tan says.<\/p>\n

\n\tBusan marks the project\u2019s first outing, and the producers want it to put Lee on the map as a first-time feature director. They also hope to find co-producers, financiers and other collaborators, and believe the story is universal enough to travel across regions.<\/p>\n

\n\tLee is also developing his next idea, which takes on present-day Singapore concerns, among them a low birth rate and a shortage of land, and adds a supernatural element.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A widowed programmer who builds a digital copy of his late wife ends up turning grief into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[307487,307418,27449,156,409,111,139,69,307488],"class_list":["post-626025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-anthony-chen","tag-asian-project-market","tag-busan-international-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-talk-to-me-when-you-are-dead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}