Director Saw Teong Hin tears up during press conference

Director Saw becomes emotional on stage as he recalls memories of his late mother.

27 Apr – Adapted from his tremendously successful stage play, director Saw Teong Hin's latest movie, "You Mean the World to Me" is produced as a tribute to his late mother and all the mothers out there.

The movie is the first ever Malaysian full-length feature filmed entirely in the Penang Hokkien dialect, and is also a semi-autobiographical story based on the director's life.

During the press conference of the movie, when asked why the director decided to adapt his personal life story for the big screen, Saw shed tears as he recalled memories of his late mother.

The director wipes off his tears.

Caption: The director wipes off his tears. "The driving reason is to honour my mother, and to apologise (to her)," Saw said as he tried very hard to hold back his tears.

"This film was made to remind people how important family is, and to tell them that we should not take them (family) for granted, especially the sacrifices of our parents," Saw continued as he regained his composure.

"You Mean the World to Me" is a story about a film director who returns to his hometown in Penang to shoot a new film about his family without their acknowledgement or approval.

(L-R) Christopher Doyle, Yeo Yann Yann, Najwa Abu Bakar (Head of Astro Shaw), Saw Teong Hin, Frederick Lee, and Neo Swee Lin.

The movie stars Frederick Lee, Yeo Yann Yann, Neo Swee Lin, Steve Yap, Sue Tan and Chelsia Ng, with celebrated cinematographer Christopher Doyle in charge of the cinematography.

Astro Shaw is handling the movie's distribution in Malaysia, where it will be released this 4 May, while MM2 Entertainment will be handling the movie's pending release in Taiwan and Singapore.