Wi Ding Ho

Wi Ding Ho, born and raised in Malaysia, attended the film school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, lives in Taipei these days. His first feature film Pinoy Sunday (funded and supported by NHK, Japan) garnered a pair of awards at Taipei International Film Festival and also won Wi Ding a Best New Director Award from the prestigious Golden Horse Award. It also won the Best Feature Film for the Comedy Cluj Film Festival in Romania.

Wi Ding’s latest feature is Beautiful Accident, a Taiwan-China-Korea co-production. The tragic-comedy feature will be released theatrically in this summer.

Wi Ding’s previous short film Summer Afternoon premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival. It was the only Asian film selected in the category that year. Respire, the short film that preceded Summer Afternoon, premiered at the International Critics’ Week, of the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Here it won the Kodak Discovery Award and the TV5 (very) Young Critics Award. The following year Respire clocked in with the Best Fantasy Short Film Award at Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival and a Special Jury Award at the Taipei International Film Festival.

In 2011, Wi Ding directed two commissioned short films. 100 is a segment of 10+10, a joint film project comprised of twenty celebrated directors initiated by Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. It has its international premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. The other short I wake up in a strange bed is a segment of the four shorts compilation When Yesterday Comes, commissioned by Catholic Foundation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia. When Yesterday Comes won Special Mention of the International Jury Award at Internationales FilmFestival Manheim-Heidelberg. Wi Ding directed short I wake up in a strange bed won the Best Short Film Award in Taipei International Film Festival.

In 2014, Wi Ding was commissioned to direct a Singapore film, also his English-language debut – Our Sister Mambo, the remake of Cathey Classic “Our Sister Hedy” made in Hong Kong in 1957s. The film was theatrically released in Singapore and Malaysia and will be screened in “Angels over the Rainbow – 80th Anniversary of Cathay” Exhibition in prestigious Hong Kong Film Archive.

Wi Ding’s TV movie for China CCTV “The Biggest Toad in the Puddle” has gained rave reviews and attentions from festivals since it debuted in Shanghai International Film Festival. It has screened in Beijing International Film festival and Singapore Chinese Film Festival. It was nominated for Taipei Film Award in 2015 Taipei International Film Festival.