I have always been drawn to thresholds.
Not as a philosophy I arrived at, but as something I was born into. I came into the world eight months after my father drowned, carried by a grieving widow who chose, against the weight of everything, to continue. That beginning — poised between loss and love, between one life ending and another beginning — turns out to have been the pattern for everything that followed.
I grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia, the son of a Chinese-Punjabi family, raised by a mother whose faith was quiet, practical and unshakeable. She taught me early that presence is a form of love, and that the most important things in life happen at ordinary tables, between people who are paying attention.
My path has crossed many borders — geographical, cultural and interior. I studied film, sociology and anthropology before a Chevening Scholarship brought me to Goldsmiths, University of London to complete a Master’s in Writing and Directing. Twenty-five years of filmmaking followed — across Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran and beyond. I have been an altar boy and an addict, a chef and a director, a stranger in many rooms and, in each of them, someone trying to understand what is actually happening beneath the surface of things.
What I have come to understand is that I am not drawn to arrival. I am drawn to the between — to the moment of transition itself, when what was is dissolving and what will be has not yet formed. This is where cinema feels most alive. It is where a shared meal becomes something more than food. It is where the dying person and the people who love them most need someone who will not flinch or rush or resolve things prematurely.
In the edit suite, at the bedside, at the kitchen table — the work is the same. To attend. To hold the space. To trust that what is unfolding is doing so in its own right time.
These are not separate chapters. They are the same vocation, practised at different thresholds.
If something here speaks to you, I welcome a quiet conversation.
Film — Profiles & Interviews
- Tatler Asia — Bernard Chauly profile
- OWNDAYS MEETS — vol. 16, Film Director
- BizBrunei — Making an Impact Through Film in the Digital Age
- BFM — Spotlight on Istanbul Aku Datang
- Raintown Film Festival Facebook — Taiping Filmmaker
Film — Reviews
Culinary