Samples of Global Film Festival Testimony:

Paris Awards Film Festival (Paris, France)

Dear Yankee,

Your work has passed the official selection of the festival! Your work could not leave us indifferent, and we could not help but appreciate the skill and courage of your idea.

We sincerely congratulate you. We wish you endless inspiration, interesting projects, and even greater creative success! May your art continue to delight and inspire us all.

White Apple International Film Festival (Almaty, Kazakhstan)

Dear Yankee,

Congratulations on your win! This is an incredible achievement, and we are proud of your talent and dedication to the art of filmmaking. SIGNED, BABA impressed us with its depth, creativity, and emotional power.

Infinite Creativity Film Festival (Geneva, Switzerland)

Dear Yankee Zhou Yanz,
Congratulations! We were impressed by your application to participate in our festival, and your work made us think.

Nocturna Film Festival (New York, USA)

Dear Yankee,

We are the Nocturna Film Festival in Brooklyn, New York.

A trail of news on your film Signed Baba led us to your profile and wider work, we looked you up to share our call for entries with you. 

Faro International Film Festival (Faro, Portugal)

Dear Yankee,

I hope this message finds you well.

I believe you’re the creator and Executive Producer for the film Signed Baba? 

I’ve intercepted news of your film and the awards it is garnering, it looks most impressive, and I hope for my jury team and I to experience it soon! Congratulations! I’d also be interested in learning about all your other projects, past and future!

Paris Awards Film Festival (Paris, France)

We have received the news about the existence of your wonderful work “SIGNED, BABA”, we have received urgent recommendations from partners to invite you, it is important for our festival to find new potentially strong works, we will be extremely grateful if you become a part of our festival.

Portuguese Lemur International Film Festival (Lisbon, Portugal)

Hi, my name is Maria! I’m a representative of the Portuguese Lemur Film Festival. We heard a lot about your work “SIGNED, BABA”. We’re inviting you to take part in our competition with annual screenings and cash prizes.

New York Neorealism Film Awards (Rome, Italy)

Congratulations on your project!

I’m contacting you from an international community of filmmakers which is called the New York Neorealism Film Awards. The latest project produced by our Company is a movie with the participation of the Academy Award Winner Sir James Ivory.

We have been informed about your project, so we were wondering if you are interested in joining our community.

Lonely Wolf International Film Festival (London, UK)

Hi Yankee!

Is this Yankee Zhou behind the film Signed Baba?

This is Adrian Perez howling at you all the way from the Lonely Wolf International Film Festival!

Signed Baba!

I want to get you in!

My amazing film scout Nabeel has brought your film to my attention, and I’d like to invite you directly to compete at Lonely Wolf. 

Colossus Film Festival (Paris, France)

Dear Yankee,

I hope all is well with you.

I’m Patrick, the director of the Colossus Film Festival. Your body of work has caught my attention, and I’d like to extend a special invitation for you to participate in the nominations of our festival.

Beyond The Screen Festival (Antwerp, Belgium)

Hello, Yankee!
This is Lena Lemaire from Beyond The Screen Festival.
We would like to invite you to take part in our competition with your screenplay “SIGNED, BABA”.  

So, you just scrolled by the image of me at an event for my non-profit organization, Memory Community (memorycountry.org), which will be the production house of “Signed, Baba”. It will be a huge task, but Memory Community is ready to take it on! 

Apart from my title as a poet, I have been a filmmaker for four decades, from my home country Taiwan to the USA. I am globally minded, so I have always made my films or videos in a universal perspective. The Memory Community Movie Memoir (youtube.com/@memorycommunity & youtube.com/@memorycommunity3167) project demonstrates this vision of mine vividly, and “Signed, Baba” is the extension of my heart for speaking for elderly and disabled people. 

The inception of “Signed, Baba” began somewhere in 2015, if not earlier. It took me the following six years to officially start writing the script. Due to the mental preparation having been mature enough, the script was done in a couple of months, if not sooner. In March of 2023, the script began her film festival competition trail, and the rest is history (herstory, I would be happy to say): It has garnered over forty awards up to the first day of 2024 from serious film festivals around the world. And new invitations keep coming in.   

The magnitude of what contributors will help “Signed, Baba” is all but great: you will help make a rarely seen (I can promise you that) art film out of the award-winning script. It will be under the label “Indie Film” too, but not the indies you may have watched too much of.

We will invite beloved George Takei of the “Star Trek” fame to take the role of The Father in the film.

We have secured the versatile Katie Otten (katieotten.com) to take the role of The Filmmaker.

Arthur Tseng, of Amitofo Care Center International and with credit in Yankee Zhou’s “Angel  Dust”, will take the primary part, The Inquirer. ​

Debi Rivera, a retired palliative care nurse, will take the part of The Palliative Care Team Head.

Marc Smason (marcsmason.com), active Seattle trombonist and band leader will be invited as a guest star in the film to play himself, The Trombonist, with other musicians.

Music score wise, Kelan Huang (kelanhuang.com) and George Wiederkehr are the best duo the film could have gotten.

The awarded cinematographer and writer/director Avan Lin is the cinematographer on our list. 

What We Need & What You Get

No doubt we are here interacting with you because we need graceful financial support for this film which has peculiar characters, provocative action, profound title cards, poetic voice-overs, and esoteric, mesmerizing imagery. We welcome you aboard to share credits with us. Your generosity will meet with our generosity by crediting you significantly. Every dollar you fund us will all go to the film minus external spendings like using platform fees.

Set as a nonprofit film, we will get consultation from relevant special groups or charities so that the characters in the film will be true depiction of a group of people who live among us, usually anonymous or hidden.    

We have a carefully construed alternate plan to exert if the funding goal is not reached, so your contribution and your goodwill will never be sent to waste.  

The Impact

Since this film has been hugely praised for its screenplay around the world’s film festivals (in close relation with their film industry), we are super-confident that when the actual film is made possible by your visionary support, it will have a definite impact on international filmgoers, film critics, film industries, and you!  

Risks & Challenges

“Signed, Baba”, being a nonprofit film, doesn’t imply that we are looking away from gaining in box-office and other market opportunities. However, when you donate to “Signed, Baba”, you donate to support a great cause at the same time. Nor does “Signed, Baba”, being an art house film, imply that it will only gain critical praise, given that a lot of mastery art films in the past have made long-term financial rewards throughout decades.   

Other Ways You Can Help

If you just can’t contribute, it doesn’t mean you can’t help. You can ask folks to get the word out and make some noise about this campaign. Remind them to use the Indiegogo share tools!