Voyage

Description

A young psychiatrist ventures into a lone voyage to fight his depression. On the sea he records stories of people departed from this world prematurely, while what awaits him on the shore is the ultimate irony of life.

Running Time: 100 mins
Written, produced and directed by SCUD
Cinematography by Charlie Lam/ Art Direction & Costume Design by Irving Cheung/Music by Yu Yat Yiu/ Edited by Chan Chi Wai & Matthew Hui

Main Cast
Ryo van Kooten/ Susan Shaw/ Sebastian Castro/ Byron Pang/ Linda So/Leni Speidel/ Debra Baker/ Adrian Heung/ Haze Leung/ Sau Wong/ Ryan Zhu/ Chan Than San

• 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam– Official Selection and Focus Director
• 49th Chicago International Film Festival – Official Selection
• 1st Q Hugo Award
• 37th São Paulo International Film Festival – Official Selection
• Kyoto International Film and Art Festival 2015 – Special Invitation

What Scud once believed to be his final film, Voyage is about depression, suicide, premature death and afterlife. It’s based upon his own experience of depression, and those of his friends’, some had lost their battles of life. It was filmed entirely in English, shot in Inner Mongolia, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, Netherlands and Hong Kong. The film opened in the 49th Chicago International Film Festival and received an Artistic Achievement Award. Scud was the first tribute honoree of Q-Hugo, for his contributions in LGBT film community, and in appreciation of his “edgy, tender, and bold filmmaking”.

“A psychiatrist debating the link between his choice of profession and his mental state, gets on his boat and embarks on a voyage. Grappling with his own depression, he revisits encounters with former patients. His attempt at self-therapy becomes an anthology of short stories, where Yuan (exiled to Inner Mongolia under Mao’s Chinese re-education policy), Ming (a young man with disabilities), Leni (a German columnist coping with the death of her mother) and Sebastian (an artist romantically involved with a young woman in the Netherlands) become the characters.

Voyage is a further cinematic excursion into the depths of the human mind, that offers different perspectives on the realities of depression and delves deep in the search for its source. In doing so a new motif that will become evident in Scud’s later films surfaces – ghosts and the afterlife. The nudity of men stands in for the nudity of souls, and sexual encounters and relationships act as proof of life with distorted undertones. Voyage dances in the space between expressions of radiant vulnerability and absurdity.

– kijA”

Information Sources: IFFR 2024

More：Ryo Van Kooten / Byron Pang / Susan Shaw / Leni Adams / Adrian Heung / Simon Tam