at filmart

Transcription

at filmart

DA
Y
3
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 2015
AT FILMART
www.ScreenDaily.com
Editorial +852 2582 8958
Advertising +852 5131 5309
DA
Y
3
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 2015
AT FILMART
www.ScreenDaily.com
Hollywood
producers
gallop to China
BY LIZ SHACKLETON
Beijing Galloping Horse, which
recently appointed former Ivanhoe
co-chief Ray Chen as general manager, is lining up two US-China coproductions with producers Jerry
Weintraub (Ocean’s Eleven) and
Cameron Jones (Traffic).
Weintraub is executive producing martial-arts action title Legion
Of One, to be directed by Christopher Cain (Young Guns). Cain’s
Angry Monkey Entertainment is
the US producer on the project,
about a foreign orphan who is
raised as a kung-fu master in the
Shaolin temple.
Jones is producing 1980s-set
musical Forever Young, to be
directed by Eric Stoltz, which is in
the early stages of development.
Galloping Horse is also developing three Chinese projects: a New
York-set youth drama to be
directed by newcomer Frank Zhu;
an untitled comedy to be directed
by Huang Lei (Angry Kid) and
executive produced by Zhang
Yibai; and a feature version of hit
TV series Legend Of Zhen Huan.
Galloping Horse recently went
through an ownership battle following the death of founder Li Ming
early last year and is now headed by
Li’s two sisters. Chen said he is positioning the company as a “solid
content provider that will specialise
in helping co-production projects
and working with new talent”.
Editorial +852 2582 8958
Mike Tyson to fight
Donnie Yen in Ip Man 3
BY LIZ SHACKLETON
Mike Tyson has joined Donnie Yen
in the cast of Pegasus Motion Pictures’ 3D kung-fu biopic Ip Man 3,
which will also revive Bruce Lee
using CGI.
The US boxer will do battle with
China’s biggest martial-arts star in
the movie, the third instalment in
the hit series about the life of Bruce
Lee’s Wing Chun master, which
starts shooting in China tomorrow.
Tyson issued a challenge to Yen
in real life when he launched a
Weibo account in 2013 and asked
Chinese netizens who was the
country’s best fighter.
Mike Tyson
Directed by Wilson Yip from a
script by Edmond Wong, the film
is produced by Pegasus chief Raymond Wong and executive produced by Shi Jian Xiang. Yuen
Woo-ping is on board as stunt coordinator. The cast also includes
Lynn Hung, Max Zhang, Patrick
Tam, Louis Cheung, Karena Ng
and Song Wen Bing.
The story in the third instalment
focuses on the master-student relationship between Ip Man and
Bruce Lee. At a press conference to
unveil the project in Shanghai
today, Raymond Wong will reveal
how the production team has
deployed the latest CGI technology
to recreate Lee rather than use an
actor to play the irreplaceable star.
Well Go USA pre-bought North
America and a slew of other territories on Ip Man 3 in early 2014.
The film is scheduled for release
over Chinese New Year 2016.
Johnnie To
NEWS
Heist planned
Johnnie To heist movie Three tops
Media Asia slate
» Page 4
REVIEW
Murmur Of The Hearts
Isabella Leong and Joseph Chang
give strong performances in the
HKIFF opening film
» Page 6
FEATURES
Buzz titles
The hot films from Southeast Asia
and Taiwan
» Page 13-15
SCREENINGS
What to see today at Filmart
» Page 19
Final print daily
This is Screen’s final print edition for
Filmart 2015. For continued
coverage, see ScreenDaily.com
iQiyi signs sixmovie deal
with Wong Jing
BY LIZ SHACKLETON
Aaron Kwok attended a Filmart press conference yesterday for Soi Cheang’s The Monkey King 2, in which
he will star with Gong Li. The big-budget 3D action adventure will be released over Chinese New Year 2016.
mm2 game for co-production
Singaporean producer/distributor
mm2 Asia has signed a
memorandum of understanding
with Chinese company Grand
Olympus Films and Jack Neo’s
Singapore producer J Team
Productions to co-produce Game
Kids (working title), a comedy to be
distributed primarily in the
mainland China market.
Dealing with modern Chinese
parent-child relationships, the film
Advertising +852 5131 5309
TODAY
will be directed by Jack Neo, whose
Ah Boys To Men series have all been
record-breaking hits.
Melvin Ang, CEO of mm2 Asia,
said he was “confident Game Kids,
with its winning formula and
universal themes, will engage
audiences in China”. The producers
aim to start shooting by the second
quarter of 2016 and release the film
by the fourth quarter of 2017.
Jean Noh
WTFilms finds Golden Cane
BY LIZ SHACKLETON
Paris-based WTFilms has picked
up worldwide rights to Indonesian
martial-arts drama The Golden
Cane Warrior in association with
Backup Media.
Produced by Mira Lesmana and
directed by Ifa Isfansyah, the film
tells the story of two student fighters who, after their master is killed,
set out to find the Golden Cane relic
before it falls into the wrong hands.
The cast includes Christine
Hakim, Eva Celia Latjuba, Nicho-
las Saputra and Reza Rahadian.
Fight scenes were choreographed
by Xion Xin Xin, who has worked
with Jet Li and Jackie Chan.
WTFilms is playing a trailer for
buyers in Filmart and planning an
international premiere at a festival
soon. “My partner and I are big
fans of Asian action films so we are
very happy to partner with our
friends at Backup Media on this
high-quality, traditional and exotic
adventure,” said WTFilms’ Gregory Chambet.
Chinese online video giant iQiyi
has signed a co-operation deal
with Hong Kong film-maker Wong
Jing to co-produce and finance six
of his upcoming movies.
Wong will direct one of the six
films and produce the other five.
The deal will kick off with romantic
comedy Get Your Dream Girl,
scheduled for release this summer,
about three guys who buy their
dream women online.
“Wong Jing really understands
what the China market needs,” said
iQiyi senior vice-president Yang
Xianghua. Wong’s From Vegas To
Macau II recently grossed $160m
in mainland China.
Mega-Vision announced this
week that a third From Vegas To
Macau film would be produced for
release over Chinese New Year 2016.
iQiyi launched a film production
division last year, iQiyi Motion Pictures, which is investing in one US
and seven Chinese films every year.
Investments so far include Jiang
Wen’s Gone With The Bullets, Dante
Lam’s To The Fore and Soi Cheang’s
Monkey King 2.
News
More In
blasts off
with Rift
Korea’s More In Group has
launched sales here on South
Korea-Serbia-Slovenia sci-fi
thriller The Rift.
Award-winning Serbian
director Dejan Zecevic —
whose latest feature was The
Enemy, a horror film set in the
aftermath of the Bosnian civil
war — is in production on the
sci-fi thriller.
The Rift stars US actor Ken
Foree (George A Romero’s Dawn
Of The Dead ), Slovenian actress
Katarina Cas (The Wolf Of Wall
Street), Swedish veteran Bo
Svenson (The Great Waldo
Pepper) and Serbian star Dragan
Micanovic (Coriolanus).
The Rift sees a NASA space
shuttle crash in eastern Serbia
and a team of US and Serbian
agents sent to secure the
remains of the lone passenger.
However, the astronaut has
disappeared and does not seem
to have returned to Earth alone.
Serbia’s Viktoria Film (The
Fourth Man, Frozen Stiff ) is
co-producing with Korea’s More
In Group (The Tenor Lirico
Spinto) and Slovenia’s BBO Star.
The Rift is set to wrap
shooting in Serbia on April 25.
Jean Noh
Media Asia plans To heist
By Liz Shackleton
Media Asia launched its slate at
Filmart yesterday, which includes
Johnnie To’s heist movie Three
and Adam Wong’s He Remembers,
She Forgets, starring Miriam
Yeung and Jan Lamb.
To’s heist drama stars Louis
Koo, Vicki Zhao Wei and Wallace
Chung in the story of a doctor
who finds herself in the crossfire
between police and gangsters.
To has also teamed with Yau
Nai-hoi to produce Trivisa,
directed by three up-and-coming
film-makers, about a trio of notorious mainland gangsters who
As previously announced, John
Woo is directing action thriller
Manhunt for Media Asia, based
on Japanese novel Kimi Yo Fundo
No Kawa O Watare.
Media Asia’s 2015 line-up also
includes Longman Leung and
Sunny Luk’s Helios, which opens
in China on April 30.
With Korean pop culture rising
globally, Media Asia is also working with Seoul-based SM Entertainment to launch Dragon Tiger
Capital Partners. The investment
fund aims to strengthen ties
between the Chinese and Korean
entertainment industries.
PAM captures N Korean defector
By Jean Noh
PAM Korea Media has launched
sales on a documentary about an
internationally renowned pianist
and North Korean defector at
Filmart.
Arirang Sonata focuses on Kim
Cheol-woong, who, after being
tortured for playing music
deemed unacceptable for communists, escaped from North Korea
in 2001 through China to arrive in
South Korea in 2002.
Director Park Bum-hoon has
been working on the film, his first
documentary, for five years.
“We finished shooting in South
Red Sea finds romance in HK
By Michael Rosser
Los Angeles-based Red Sea Media
has snapped up sales for It’s
Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong
and is debuting the romantic
comedy at Filmart.
Directed and written by Emily
Ting, the film stars Jamie Chung
(Big Hero 6) and Bryan Greenberg
(Friends With Benefits), and was
produced by Ting with Sophia
Shek. Chung plays a Chinese
American who visits Hong Kong
for the first time and meets a US
ex-pat (Greenberg). But as
romance blossoms, time is not on
their side.
Red Sea has also taken on
international sales for Slamdance
vampire comedy Bloodsucking
Bastards, which it is also selling
here.
come together for their latest
heist.
Wong’s new Media Asia project
is nostalgic romantic drama He
Remembers, She Forgets, produced
by Teddy Robin and Saville Chan.
Wong won the best new director
prize at last year’s Hong Kong
Film Awards for his independently produced streetdance
movie, The Way We Dance.
Media Asia’s 2015 slate also
includes two romantic comedies:
All You Need Is Love, starring
Richie Jen and Shu Qi; and An
Office And A Panderer, starring
Gordon Lam and Ivana Wong.
Arirang Sonata
Korea last March, but were waiting for permission for him to go
back to China and reunite with a
friend who hid him there,” Park
told Screen.
“At first, I was mostly interested in what he went through to
defect, thinking that was cinematic. But I found out that what
he’s done and been through since
coming to South Korea is also
interesting. He started a family
and has been playing concerts
around the world to make money
to educate North Korean defector
children.”
The film is in post-production,
to be completed at the end of
April. With no voiceover, it is carried by Kim’s music and stories.
The documentary previously
won support from the Korean
Film Council and the Seoul Film
Commission.
Singapore, US
firms play ball
By Jean Noh
Singapore’s Silver Media Group
and Los Angeles-based Push To
Start Productions have signed a
deal at Filmart to co-produce
faith-based film One Hundred
Yards.
Kevin Sorbo from TV series
Hercules and WWE star John
Hennigan (Hercules Reborn) are
attached.
The film centres on a college
quarterback who abandons a
career in American football to
search for his missing mother in
the Philippines. Production is due
to begin later this year.
NYAFF honours
Japan’s legends
By Jean Noh
New York Asian Film Festival
(NYAFF) has announced a special
focus on two Japanese film legends, Ken Takakura (Black Rain)
and Bunta Sugawara (Battles
Without Honor And Humility), who
both passed away last November.
The festival (June 26-July 11)
will also include a focus on Japanese director Daihachi Yoshida
(The Kirishima Thing). World premieres include Fire Lee’s Robbery.
NYAFF and Screen International will for the second year present the Screen Rising Star Asia
Award.
Kuala Lumpur
readies trade,
copyright event
By Liz Shackleton
It’s Already Tomorrow In Hong Kong
Directed by Brian James
O’Connell, the film was written by
comedy troupe Dr. God from a
script by Ryan Mitts. It stars Fran
Kranz (Cabin In The Woods) as an
office worker whose company is
taken over by vampires.
The producers are Fortress
Features’ Brett Forbes and Patrick
Rizzotti, and Maybe This Year
Productions’ Brandon Evans.
4 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015
Malaysian publishing agency
Kota Buku is organising the 6th
Kuala Lumpur Trade & Copyright
Centre (KLTCC) running April
19-21.
Held at the Putra World Trade
Centre, the event enables writers
and agents to sell copyrighted
material to publishers and the
directors and producers of films,
TV programming and games.
In addition to the international
market, KLTCC will feature a
business-matching programme,
networking reception and conferences. More than 100 buyers are
expected to attend, including Disney, ABS CBN and Korea’s KBS.
Mirovision serenaded by Hara
Korea’s Mirovision has made a last-minute pick-up of Keinosuke Hara’s
Japanese film Serenade. Risa Sudo stars as Manami, who raised her
daughter Sayoko (Izumi Fujimoto) as a single mother while running a
snack bar. The father is a drag queen known as Angel (Ken Yasuda), but
Sayoko knows him as her mother’s longtime friend.
On her return to her home town after a series of failed romances in
Tokyo, Sayoko finds the snack bar is on the verge of closure and
decides to open a drag queen bar, asking for help from Angel.
Produced by Hidemi Satani and Manabu Shinoda, the film was
released in Japan last October. Jean Noh
www.screendaily.com
C
M
Y
M
Y
Y
MY
K
Reviews
Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan [email protected]
Hong Kong in brief
Jasmine
Dir/prod/scr Dax Phelan. HK. 2015. 80
mins. HKIFF world premiere, Indie Power
Jasmine, an English-language thriller set in
Hong Kong, stars Jason Tobin as a troubled
young man who has just returned to town
after an unspecified breakdown. He is lonely
and alienated and has deep scars on his
wrists. He initially seems eager to make a
fresh start.
Writer-director Dax Phelan uses the trope
of the unreliable narrator to mixed effect in
Jasmine, a classically executed, slow-moving
descent into paranoia set on the streets of
Hong Kong. Working from an idea by
Phelan and Tobin, Jasmine’s script is too
thinly fleshed-out to be entirely successful,
and the production drags through its final
frames. This moody noir will find a slim
audience locally, and works best as a calling
card for its director and lead actor, who are
clearly skilled.
The entire film rests on Tobin’s shoulders
and he gives a buttoned up performance as
Leonard, a former lawyer. Later on he
reveals that his wife Jasmine was murdered
a year ago. He starts taking cocaine and has
a breakdown in a cramped hotel room and
becomes convinced that her murderer is still
walking the streets. With a narrative debt to
Christopher Nolan, Guy Livneh’s camerawork is able although Phelan’s direction is
long on establishing shots, which can
become repetitive.
Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan
Striving for an elegiac tone, Sylvia Chang’s
return to directing (after 2008’s Run Papa Run)
crushes a delicate story of siblings separated
after their parents’ break-up inside a spaghetti
junction of flashbacks, sidebars, dream
sequences, apparitions and magical realism.
The Taiwan-born, Hong Kong-based actress/
director, who co-scripted with Yukihiko Kageyama, pulls a moving finale out of her flights of
fancy, but the journey can be wearing, its vagaries emphasised by Chen Yang’s repetitive score.
Murmur Of The Hearts has much to recommend it, from strong central performances to
some gorgeous lensing from Leung Ming-kai
on the Taiwanese island of Lyudao, which hosts
a correctional facility. It has a moody strength
but Murmurs suffers from Chang’s narrative sallies and a loose structure. While it’s something
of a let-down, given its potential, the film will
still find a following, particularly in Asia.
Central to the story is the character of Yu Mei
(Isabella Leong, making a comeback), who
dreams of her childhood on the ‘Green Island’
with mother and brother in flashback. She has
a complicated relationship with her boxer boyfriend, Hsiang (Joseph Chang), who is given an
World premiere,
HKIFF opening film
Tai-HK. 2015. 140mins
Director Sylvia Chang
Production company
Dream Creek Production
Company
International sales
Central Motion Pictures
Producer Patricia Cheng
Screenplay Sylvia Chang,
Yukihiko Kageyama
Cinematography Leung
Ming-kai
Production design Penny
Tsai
Editor Chen Po-wen
Main cast Isabella Leong,
Joseph Chang, Lawrence
Ko, Angelika Lee Sinje,
Wang Shih-hsien
entire film of his own — poor performance,
detatched retina, tough trainer, absentee father
— although they enjoy a vigorous sex life.
Yu Mei seems to be estranged from her
brother Yu Nan (Lawrence Ko) and mother Jen
(Angelika Lee Sinje). Gradually, Chang teases
out the information — Jen, who ran a noodle
shop with her brutish husband, had an affair
with a dissident, became pregnant, and fled
Lyudao with Yu Mei, leaving Yu Nan behind.
The acting is strong, in particular Leong and
Chang, delivering a troubled relationship that
seems entirely believable, despite the heavy
symbolism. And Chang is well-served by her
technical team; the underwater camerawork is
lustrous; above ground, the island of Lyudao
looks nothing like a prison, but a home that
calls to these wandering children.
Fionnuala Halligan
A Young Patriot
Sworn Virgin
Dir Laura Bispuri. It-Switz-Ger-Alb-Kos.
2015. 90mins. HKIFF Young Cinema
Competition
This first-time feature by Roman director
Laura Bispuri — about a young Albanian
woman who has sworn eternal virginity and
taken on manly ways and garb in order to
escape being married off — places a lot of
responsibility on the shoulders of go-to Italian arthouse actress Alba Rohrwacher. She
responds by turning in a magnetic performance, but despite this and the director’s
skill at creating emotional resonance out of
small things, it is not quite enough to stop
the Sworn Virgin from feeling a little undercooked.
Mark/Hana (Rohrwacher), an orphan,
has spent 10 years living as a man in Albania, but a trip to Italy to visit her adoptive
sister proves a turning point in this small
film, whose narrative reticence will appeal
best to patient audiences.
Shot in intimate handheld style, Sworn
Virgin is at least in part a film about transitions — between an ancient pastoral culture
and the confusing modern city where all the
rules need to be relearned, if they exist at all,
between womanhood and manhood, dry
land and water, Albanian and Italian.
Lee Marshall
Du Haibin’s ethnographic documentary A
Young Patriot follows the young Zhao Chantong,
a 19-year-old boy from Pingyao, in Shanxi province, northern China. He is an ardent patriot
when Du’s camera first finds him in 2010, walking the streets dressed in an old military uniform and brandishing the Chinese flag. Time,
though, has a tendency to dampen down teenage enthusiasm, and Zhao begins to question
his country through the haze of his nationalism.
Du has delivered a frank picture of Chinese
youth in A Young Patriot, marked by some
attractive lensing by Liu Aiguo that pushes the
film into artistic territory, in particular with
static shots of Pingyao. A statue of Mao looks
silently over the village, sealed in a glass box, as
diggers tear up the ancient walls and the home
in which Zhao’s aged grandparents still live.
A Young Patriot seems destined to find its
best audience in festival sidebars and as an
educational tool. Du has not attempted anything like the scale of Fan Lixin’s Last Train
Home, but his intimate portrait of a boy and his
politics illustrates the issues facing China today
and is remarkably frank. Supported by, among
World
premiere, HKIFF
documentary
competition
Chi. 2015. 106mins
Director Du Haibin
Production companies
CNEX, ITVS International,
24 Images
Contact CNEX Studio
Corporation, amie@cnex.
org.cn
Producers Ben Tsang,
Ruby Chen
Cinematography Liu
Aiguo
Editor Mary Stephen
Sound design/music
Pierre Carrasco
others, the Sundance Institute, the Asian Cinema Fund and the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, a Congress-backed body, A
Young Patriot will be seen by some as having an
agenda, and it will be interesting to see how
this film plays out politically.
When we first meet him, Zhao is talking fervently of joining the army. By the time he gets
roaringly drunk to celebrate his acceptance to
Chengdu University, his zeal is slipping. He has
been borrowing money and begins to wonder on
what China’s prosperity is built. By the time his
family becomes embroiled in a messy fight over
compensation in Pingyao, Zhao is questioning
his former zeal. “What is real patriotism? It’s
very broad,” he muses. Before finally admitting
forlornly: “It all seems so complicated.”
www.screendaily.com
Screenings, page 19
A Man From Manchuria
Hong Kong in brief
Dir Jiang Wen. Chi-US. 2014. 134mins.
Market
Jiang Wen follows up the incredible success
of 2010’s Let The Bullets Fly with a suitably
ostentatious and convoluted yarn about the
violent ramifications of a rigged beauty pageant in 1920s Shanghai. Pulsating with
splashy dance numbers, garish visuals and
an overzealous desire to hit Western audiences right in their nostalgia centre, Gone
With the Bullets proves an unwieldy, selfindulgent ride.
Taking on the lead role himself in his fifth
feature, Jiang plays Ma Tiao-jih, a Manchurian gangster now settled in Shanghai during the tumultuous Warlords Era of the
1920s. At his side is partner-in-crime
Hsiang Fie-tien (Ge You), who weasels his
way into the position of police chief of
Shanghai’s French Concession.
Co-produced by Columbia Pictures,
Jiang’s film will likely baffle more casual
viewers than it baits. But those with the
courage and open-mindedness to embrace
this Baz Luhrmann-esque barrage of bravado and burlesque should find enough to
entertain them within its sprawling 134
minutes. Gone With The Bullets plays out
like a deranged, vaudevillian variety show,
an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink attempt
to reach an international audience.
Novelist Tang Di makes a disturbing screen
debut with A Man From Manchuria, a degraded
and disorientating piece that is deliberately
oblique and discomfiting. It is scratchy and raw
and mostly occluded, forcing the viewer into
the uncomfortable perspective of a voyeur. It
will almost certainly find its way into festivals
where its brutal viewpoint will provoke debate.
Mainstream exhibition is probably out of
reach for A Man From Manchuria — apart from
being outside the realm of what is accepted as
tasteful, its scenes of drug-taking, wife-beating
and necrophilia will result in a restricted rating
if it remains uncut, and it is already brief at 86
minutes. Tang makes a lasting impression
however; the grimy, septic feel is unique,
although the blunt and raw shooting style overstays its welcome.
Ascribing a narrative to A Man From Manchuria is difficult, and while Tang is credited
with the screenplay, it is more of an idea made
flesh. The film centres around a killer and sex
addict, who leaves home but then returns to his
wife. They indulge in brutal, sado-masochistic
sex during which she is repeatedly beaten. They
live in decayed surroundings, reeking filth and
Taxi
Reviewed by Dan Fainaru
On paper, Berlinale Golden Bear winner Taxi
looks like yet another Jafar Panahi exercise,
outsmarting once again the Iranian authorities
that have forbidden him from making films for
the next 20 years. On screen, however, this is a
delight, and though it is even more minimalistic than his last two illegal exports, This Is Not A
Film and Closed Curtain, it is also more mature,
better calibrated and — at the risk of annoying
arthouse patrons who often hate this term —
more entertaining than the other two.
Taxi is shot entirely inside a cab travelling
through Tehran, with two revolving digital
cameras fixed on the dashboard, pointed most
of the time inside the car and occasionally
turned around to look at the street, but never
leaving the confines of the vehicle.
Taxi is biting, dark and existential, disguised
beneath a lightweight, almost flippant disposition. It is built around Panahi, who drives the
cab himself, mostly listening to his passengers
as he criss-crosses Tehran. In the process, he
offers a priceless cinematic lesson, proving once
again that if you know what you want, the
whole mystical paraphernalia of film-making
and its inflated budgets is not really necessary.
www.screendaily.com
Gone With The Bullets
World premiere,
indie power
Chi. 2015. 86mins
Director/screenplay/
cinematography Tang Di
Production company
Individual Production
Company, Poetic Film
Contact Tang Di,
[email protected]
Executive producer
Soonsky
Editing Mike Lee, Tang Di,
Lim Jung Hoon
Production design Billy
Yim, Eun Lee
Original music Mxson
Lau
Main cast Mxson Lau, Liu
Xiaomei, Ma Jie
ruins; he smokes heroin and prowls the streets
of Tangshen, wheeling a suitcase. He masturbates frequently and is shown raping one of his
dead victims.
Tang’s vision is a grubby antidote to everything pretty in Chinese cinema; there is a deep,
growling base sound, punctuated by Marilyn
Manson and ambient traffic sound, underscoring visuals that are fuzzy, grungy and relentlessly
dark. As DoP, he changes back and forth from
colour to black-and-white, shifts into splitscreen,
and places his camera behind trees and doors,
keeping the viewer insecure and discomfited.
A Man From Manchuria is led by two nonactors, Mxson Lau (as per credits) and Liu
Xiaomei, and Lau is also credited with some of
the music. He is horribly believable in the role,
until, perhaps, the final over-the-top sequence.
James Marsh
12 Golden Ducks
Masterclass,
Asian Premiere
Iran. 2015. 82mins
Director/screenplay
Jafar Panahi
Production company
Jafar Panahi Film
Production
International sales
Celluloid Dreams, info@
celluloid-dreams.com
In a series of apparently unrelated vignettes,
Panahi’s customers sit in the taxi, arguing about
anything from the ease of dispensing capital
punishment in Iran to the flourishing black
market in illegal videos. Naked greed is revealed
at one point and deep human compassion at
another; a little girl is introduced as the driver’s
niece and shamelessly steals every scene with
her sharp wit and even sharper tongue.
More than ever before, Panahi’s composite
picture of contemporary Iranian reality has a
satirical shape, but the melancholy smile on the
driver’s face — and in this case driver and director are one and the same person — is more eloquent than dialogue. How this film was made,
how it was sneaked out of Tehran and how
come the regime is not blowing a fuse, are questions that remain to be answered, however.
Dir Matt Chow Hoi Kwong. HK. 2015.
84mins. Market
Sandra Ng looks to recapture the comedy
and box-office gold of her hugely lucrative
Golden Chicken series with this cheeky peek
at the male end of the Hong Kong sex trade.
Reteaming with director Matt Chow, the
producer-star here trades genders to play a
down-on-his-luck gigolo (a ‘duck in local
slang) struggling to get his groove back
amid the city’s ailing financial climate.
At a lunar new year reunion, a group of
male, middle-school ex-classmates confess
they all make their living from women’s
money — whether as a singing tutor, personal trainer, chef or estate agent. The most
successful of them all is also notably absent.
Future Cheng is a male prostitute — played
by a cross-dressing Ng — who even in his
school days had a remarkable knack for
manipulating the fairer sex. When it is
revealed Future is now all washed up in a
Bangkok knocking shop, former teacher Mr
Lo (Anthony Wong) heads to Thailand to
bring him back.
Replete with timely gags, 12 Golden Ducks
lacks the satirical bite of Ng’s previous offerings. As is de rigeur for a film such as this, it
is bursting with celebrity cameos and this,
coupled with Ng’s comedy genius, means
the film has performed well locally but
seems unlikely to fly overseas beyond a few
festival engagements.
James Marsh
March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 7
HAF Profiles
Lazy Hazy Crazy
NARAtive Film
Zhang Chu’s Novel
Dir Luk Yee-Sum
Dir Carlos M Quintela
Dir Lu Yulai
Project’s country of origin Hong Kong
Project’s country of origin Japan
Project’s country of origin China
Lazy Hazy Crazy will mark the directorial debut of
Luk Yee-Sum, a regular writer for Hong Kong maverick film-maker Pang Ho-Cheung since 2010.
Produced by Pang’s Making Film Productions, the
project is about three 15-year-old schoolgirls who are
the best of friends until their friendship is tested
when they all fall for the same boy.
Luk has always been interested in the topic of
friendship between teenage girls. “It’s fragile and, at
the same time, strong. Despite their jealousy towards
each other and the many quarrels, they treasure their
friendship as if they could not live without each
other. Through the complicated feelings of the teenage girls, I wish adult audiences could once again
experience the essence of youth,” she says.
Luk is currently casting, looking for new faces for
the teenage girls alongside notable actors in supporting roles. She is writing the screenplay with
Momo Wu, a writer and actress from Hong Kong
broadcaster TVB.
Luk’s writing credits include box-office hits Love
In The Buff, Vulgaria and, most recently, Women Who
Flirt. She was also involved in the production planning for Aberdeen, which has received seven nominations at the upcoming Hong Kong Film Awards,
including best film and best screenplay.
Making Film Productions’ co-founder Subi Liang
will produce the new project. Bravos Pictures will
handle international sales.
WY Wong
Cuban director Carlos M Quintela won the opportunity to make a feature produced by Japanese director
Naomi Kawase (The Mourning Forest) at the 2014
Nara International Film Festival.
Each year, the festival has a competition of first
and second features from which a film-maker is
selected to direct the next NARAtive Film, set in the
Nara region and produced by the festival. Quintela
won the competition with his debut feature, The
Swimming Pool.
His contribution to the NARAtive Film series will
screen at the festival’s 2016 edition in September.
Other films in the run have included Pedro GonzalezRubio’s Inori, which won Locarno’s Film-maker of
the Present Prize in 2012, and Zhao Ye’s critically
acclaimed Last Chestnuts (2010).
“In my films, the place where the story is set is very
important and connected directly to the story. I’m trying to discover what I can develop in Nara. It will be
difficult because I’m not Japanese and I don’t want to
use Japan — or Nara — as an exotic place. This is one
of the challenges of the project,” he says.
He will revisit Nara to develop the script, working
again with screenwriter Abel Arcos, who worked on
The Swimming Pool and his second feature The Project Of The Century, which won a Rotterdam Tiger
Award. Nara has raised half the projected $200,000
budget locally, but is open to increasing it depending
on script and co-producers.
Jean Noh
Zhang Chu’s Novel will mark the feature directorial
debut of Chinese actor-turned-director Lu Yulai.
Adapted from two novels by Chinese author Zhang
Chu, it follows the life of a young couple in Taoyuan,
near Tangshan. Divorce seems inevitable as they
grow apart and take on various lovers. When the
man tries to get back their son, he becomes involved
in the murder of his ex-wife’s lover.
Lu finds the small-town life portrayed in Zhang’s
novels intriguing. “Life there seems simple and meaningless, yet there’s a poetic quality that makes his intricate stories elegant and transcendent,” he says.
After graduating from Beijing Film Academy in
2013, Yu premiered his thesis short film Brother, about
a brother welcomed by his sister for his homecoming,
at Busan International Film Festival. Yu, also a graduate of Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama, made his
acting debut in Gu Changwei’s Peacock, which won
Berlin’s Silver Bear award in 2005. He also starred in
Liu Jie’s Courthouse On Horseback, which won Venice’s
Horizons award in 2006 and Cai Shangjun’s debut
The Red Awn, which received the Golden Alexander
award at Thessaloniki in 2007. Cai, whose People
Mountain People Sea won the best director prize at
Venice in 2011, will produce. Prior to directing, Cai
was a screenwriter on Spicy Love Soup, Shower and
Sunflower, all directed by Zhang Yang. Digital Jungle
is a Hong Kong-based company that made its debut
with Philip Yung’s 2009 Glamorous Youth.
WY Wong
Lazy Hazy Crazy
NARAtive Film
Zhang Chu’s Novel
Producer Subi Liang Production company Making
Film Productions Budget $1.5m Finance raised to
date $1m Contact Subi Liang [email protected]
Producer Naomi Kawase Production company
Producers Cai Shangjun Production companies
Digital Jungle Budget $1m Contact Lu Yulai
Nara International Film Festival Organising Committee
Budget $200,000 Finance raised to date $100,000
(Nara government, private sponsors) Contact Shinji
Kitagawa [email protected]
[email protected]
www.screendaily.com
Further coverage,
see screendaily.com
Riddle
Wolf And Sheep
Les Célestes
Dir Zhou Hao
Dir Shahrbanoo Sadat
Dir Gabriel Le Bomin
Project’s country of origin China, France
Project’s country of origin Denmark,
Project’s country of origin France, China
Chinese director Zhou Hao tells a magical realism
story in his latest project Riddle, in which a struggling writer enters his fictional world when he falls
in love with the woman he created on the page.
“It’s a love film about the reality of love,” says Zhou.
“Mutual affection is hard enough to obtain when two
people are in the same reality, but here they are separated by the wall between fiction and reality.”
Like his debut feature The Night, Riddle will be
shot on location in his home town, Chongqing,
which he thinks is “cinematically mostly unknown”.
“The huge gap between the rich and the poor in
Chongqing can be seen visually. This echoes the gap
between the reality and fiction in Riddle as well as the
differences between men and women,” Zhou says.
Riddle marks the first time Chinese auteur Lou Ye
is producing a film not directed by himself. Lou first
met Zhou at the Berlin film festival, where Zhou’s The
Night premiered. The micro-budget student film,
which also starred Zhou in a lead role, went on to be
named best feature at Nara International Film Festival and best new feature film at China Independent
Film Festival in Nanjing.
Philippe Bober of Paris-based Coproduction
Office is also on board the project as producer, cowriter and international sales agent. Coproduction
Office also handled international sales of The Night.
Zhou’s Chongqing-based production outfit Next
Way Film Studios is also producing the film.
WY Wong
Wolf And Sheep portrays the everyday life of a rural
community in Afghanistan through the friendship of
Basira, an 11-year old shepherd girl, and Yusof, an
eight-year-old shepherd boy.
Basira collects rich families’ sheep and goats from
the village and brings them up to the mountains to
graze. She is almost blind and no-one wants to be
her friend as they believe she is half human, half
ghost. Yusof is the youngest among the shepherds,
who gossip about his mother’s marriage to an old
man who already has two wives and many children.
“Many films have been made in Afghanistan by
Afghan and international film-makers, but none
could portray Afghan society the way it really is,”
says writer-director Shahrbanoo Sadat.
She describes Wolf And Sheep as the first arthouse
film by a female Afghan film-maker. “I have lived in
an isolated village in central Afghanistan where I am
going to shoot this film.”
Katja Adomeit, with whom Sadat co-directed Not
At Home, is producing Wolf And Sheep through her
Copenhagen-based Adomeit Film, along with
Sadat’s Kabul-based Wolf Pictures, Paris-based La
Fabrica Nocturna and Oslo-based Friland.
In pre-production, the project was part of Cannes’
Cinefondation Residency in 2011 and has received
funding from the Danish Film Institute, Cinema du
Monde, Visions Sud Est and Film i Vast. The project
also raised $100,000 through crowdfunding.
Nandita Dutta
Les Célestes is set to be a big-budget France-China coproduction based on the forgotten true story of
140,000 volunteers who travelled from China to fight
for France during the First World War. “War has been
an important theme in my work. It reflects the full
spectrum of human nature, bringing out the worst
and the best in people,” says French director Gabriel
Le Bomin, whose Les Fragments d’Antonin, about the
psychological impact of war, was nominated for best
first film at France’s Cesar awards in 2007.
Le Bomin will direct it as a multi-layered historical
adventure with elements of suspense, action and
love. The cast will include established and up-andcoming young actors from both France and China.
The project was developed by Bayoo Productions
as its first feature film. The Paris-based company has
previously produced several TV programmes aimed
at Asian audiences, including Our French Years for
Jiangsu TV, Wenzhou In Paris for Zhejiang Constant
Film and Triumph In The Skies 2 for Hong Kong’s
TVB. It was also the French line producer for Jackie
Chan’s Chinese Zodiac.
Bayoo president Wang Fanghui was born in China
and has been living in Paris for more than two decades. Bayoo is now looking for a Greater China production partner for the project. Filming is scheduled
from March 2016. Bayoo is also planning an online
campaign, including a website with testimonies
from the families of the Chinese descendants.
WY Wong
Riddle
Wolf And Sheep
Les Célestes
Producers Philippe Bober, Lou Ye Production
companies Coproduction Office, Dream Factory, Next
Way Film Studios Budget $600,000 Contact Philippe
Producers Katja Adomeit Production companies
Producers Didier Denise, Wang Fanghui, Yves Cresson
Production company Bayoo Productions Budget
$10m Finance raised to date $5m (Bayoo Productions)
Contact Didier Denise [email protected]
Bober
[email protected]
www.screendaily.com
Afghanistan, France, Norway
Adomeit Film, La Fabrica Nocturna, Wolf Pictures, Friland
Budget $880,000 Finance raised to date $550,000
Contact Katja Adomeit [email protected]
HAF PROFILES
Time Capsule
A Shade Of Paradise
Dir Tan Pin Pin
Project’s country of origin
Singapore
Nanking Xmas.1937
Dir Pham Siu
The Man From The
Sea
Project’s country of origin Vietnam
Dir Koji Fukada
Dir Yim Ho
Project’s country of origin Japan
Singaporean documentary film-maker
Tan Pin Pin is best known for her awardwinning portraits of Singapore, its people and its history through films such as
Invisible City and Singapore GaGa.
Last September, her documentary To
Singapore, With Love, which premiered
at Busan in 2013 and won a best director
award at Dubai, was banned in Singapore for its portrayal of political exiles.
Prior to that, her project Time Capsule
was the first documentary to win the
New Talent Feature Film Grant (2013)
from Singapore’s Media Development
Authority.
Tan says she was inspired by the colour footage of 1950s Singapore. “What
was interesting were the quotidian
aspects of daily life,” she says. “So I
thought, ‘If Tan Pin Pin had to put in a
time capsule some of the images she
wants Singapore to be remembered by
[today], what would it be?’”
Tan has shot or is looking to shoot a
stadium opening, school assemblies
and celebrations for Singapore’s 50th
anniversary, including the opening of a
time capsule from 1990.
“I’m making a film about the idea of
commemoration — how we always
need some kind of rituals to mark time,
and to make a national point about Singapore,” says Tan. The film is produced
by Tan’s BFG Media, which along with
her previous company Point Pictures
has produced all of her documentaries.
Jean Noh
Vietnamese director Pham Siu is in preproduction for her coming-of-age film
A Shade Of Paradise, which won the best
project award at the 3rd Hanoi International Film Festival last November.
Set in a small, rapidly changing city in
Vietnam, the film revolves around
17-year-old Mai and her 15-year-old
brother Vinh who are suddenly
orphaned. Mai brings home two foreign
wanderers while Vinh works as a servant
to an old blind dancer. They both casually lose their virginities, and the story is
brought to a crux when the foreigners
want to steal money from the old lady.
“I always think of the problems
caused by the changing of our society
[with] its wild way of development. The
loss of parents in the story represents
the loss of direction, loss of something
they can basically refer to,” says Pham.
Pham’s 2010 directorial debut Here…
Or There? — about a Frenchman married
to a local woman in a seaside town in
Vietnam — premiered in Busan’s New
Currents competition. Her second film,
Homostratus, featuring poor and lonely
people in busy, noisy Ho Chi Minh City,
won the Best Unique Vision award at the
2014 Queens World Film Festival.
Nguyen Hoang Diep is producing
with Vblock Media, which produced
Phan Dang Di’s Bi, Don’t Be Afraid
(Cannes Critics’ Week, 2010) and Nguyen’s own Venice-awarded Flapping In
The Middle Of Nowhere.
Jean Noh
Japanese director Koji Fukada’s The
Man From The Sea is a drama with fantasy elements revolving around a mysterious young man who appears on the
shores of Banda Aceh in Indonesia.
The place where he appears is marked
by the traces of a tsunami, just as neighbouring town Sabang is marked by
traces of the Second World War Japanese army. The boy is sent to a Japanese
aid worker named Takako, who decides
to call him Lau, meaning ‘sea’ in Indonesian. Three characters are drawn to
Lau: Takashi, a young Japanese man living in Indonesia; Sachiko, who has
come from Japan to chase her boyfriend;
and Hotham, who is bent on leaving
Aceh to realise his dream of becoming a
journalist.
“Each of their histories interacts with
one another beyond the sea,” says
Fukada, who previously directed
Rohmer-esque drama Au Revoir l’Eté
and comedy drama Hospitalité. Fukada
says he was inspired by a 2011 trip to
Indonesia after the great earthquake
and tsunami in Japan that year.
“I try to see suffering from the tsunami in Japan in the one in Indonesia
[together], in order to get over our
sense of loneliness,” he says.
The Man From The Sea is being produced by Nikkatsu Corporation, one of
Japan’s oldest studios. Recent Nikkatsu
releases include Sion Sono’s Tokyo Tribe
and Hideo Nakata’s The Complex.
Jean Noh
Nanking Xmas.1937 is an ambitious
$20m project from Hong Kong New
Wave director Yim Ho. It tells the story
of the Nanjing YMCA director who
smuggled secret footage of Japanese
atrocities to the outside world during
the invasion of Nanjing.
Yim’s first historical film based on a
true story, it has been 10 years in the
making, “partly because of the extensive
research and partly because of the difficulties of finding the right producing
team in Greater China for such an epic
international co-production,” he says.
Equipped with in-depth knowledge
gathered from his research, Yim says his
script covers real events that have not
been seen on film or in any literary format. He co-wrote the script with his
composer son Yim Linq. Filming locations include Nanjing and Macau.
Ng See-yuen, a veteran Hong Kong
producer best known for Drunken Master, is on board as producer. He also
owns one of mainland China’s leading
cinema chains, UME.
Yim has received several accolades
since his debut feature The Extras, which
helped launch the Hong Kong New Wave
in 1978. His 1985 drama Homecoming
won six prizes at the Hong Kong Film
Awards; Red Dust swept eight Golden
Horse awards in 1990; The Day The Sun
Turned Cold won best film and director
prizes at Tokyo in 1994; and The Sun Has
Ears won best director at Berlin in 1996.
WY Wong
Time Capsule
A Shade Of Paradise
The Man From The Sea
Nanking Xmas.1937
Producer Tan Pin Pin Production
companies BFG Media Budget $200,000
Finance raised to date $200,000 (MDA’s
New Talent Feature Film Grant) Contact
Producers Nguyen Hoang Diep
Production companies Vblock Media
Budget $414,275 Finance raised to
date $87,750 Contact Nguyen Hoang
Producers Naoko Komuro, Yoshi Kino
Production companies Nikkatsu
Corporation Budget $1m Finance raised
to date $400,000 (from Nikkatsu)
Contact Naoko Komuro
Producers Ng See Yuen, Yim Ho
Production companies Pineast Pictures
Budget $20m Finance raised to date
Tan Pin Pin
[email protected]
Diep
[email protected]
$10m (Macau Foundation, private equity)
[email protected]
Contact Yim Ho
[email protected]
www.screendaily.com
What’s The Next?
A Jade Journey
The Last Stitch
Pontianak
Dir Li Rui
Dir Teddy Soeriaatmadja
Dirs Stephen Gurie Woo, Alfred Sung
Dir Glen Goei
Indonesia
Hong Kong, Canada
Singapore, Malaysia
What’s The Next? will mark the feature
debut of director Li Rui. Based on real
events, the story follows a young peasant who is forced by real-estate developers to leave his ancestors’ village. He
heads to the China-Russia border to sell
trinkets and meets a UK woman who
will become his wife.
“It’s a tough decision — whether to
continue fighting to stay put or make a
compromise to start a new life. His predicament represents the impact of society’s rapid changes on people’s traditional
culture and way of life,” says Li.
Pema Tseden will produce the project
through Beijing Himalaya Audio & Visual Culture Communication. The
Tibetan director is known for launching
Tibetan cinema — his 2005 award winner The Silent Holy Stones, about a
10-year-old Tibetan boy training to be a
monk, was China’s first Tibetan-language film. His recent credits include
Old Dog and The Sacred Arrow.
Li got to know Tseden when they
both took part in Discovery Channel’s
First-Time Film-makers Initiative for
China in 2004. Despite their different
backgrounds, they had common interest in capturing the changes in contemporary society.
Li is a PhD student of cinematic arts
at Beijing University. Last year, she produced Yan Xian’s Story Collector as part
of Discovery Channel’s Discover Nanjing Film-makers Initiative.
WY Wong
Indonesian director Teddy Soeriaatmadja is developing the script for A Jade
Journey, about an elderly Muslim couple
in the week ahead of a long-awaited pilgrimage to Mecca to celebrate their 35th
anniversary. When the husband is suddenly hospitalised, the wife discovers he
has a mistress and her beliefs about
their relationship, herself and her faith
all come into question.
“I came up with the story wanting to
write about a couple who begins to
question their faith before leaving for
the Islamic religious pilgrimage. The
question is whether or not the power of
love can overcome this obstacle,” he
says.
Soeriaatmadja’s credits include About
A Woman, which portrays the loneliness
of a widow who has a relationship with
her live-in helper boy and made its
world premiere at Singapore International Film Festival last December.
His 2011 drama Lovely Man premiered
at Busan International Film Festival and
won the best actor prize at the 2012 Asian
Film Awards for Donny Damara’s role as
a transvestite prostitute who is reunited
with his devout Muslim daughter.
His company Karuna Pictures (Lovely
Man), is producing with Angka Fortuna
Sinema, which has credits including Ifa
Isfansyah’s 9 Summers 10 Autumns.
Isfansyah’s film was produced by Edwin
Nazir, who will also produce A Jade
Journey.
Jean Noh
Based on Alfred Sung’s award-winning
comic books The Sung Family 1 & 2, The
Last Stitch is a documentary tracing a
century of his family’s tailoring business. It will mark the feature directing
debut of Sung and TV producer Stephen Gurie Woo.
The business was started in Shanghai
when Sung’s great-grandfather became
a tailor. One of his sons, Sung’s grandfather, fled to Hong Kong with a sewing
machine and opened a tailoring shop at
the legendary Repulse Bay Hotel in
1959. Sung’s father continued the business until he relocated to Toronto in
1996 before Hong Kong’s handover.
This generational legacy will come to
an end when he retires in a few years’
time. “It is a personal journey to discover
our family heritage and to reflect on how
a career defines people’s lives,” says
Sung. “It’s also about the love and hate
between Hong Kong and Shanghai.”
Ruby Yang, whose The Blood Of Yingzhou District won an Academy Award for
best documentary short, will produce.
She was one of the mentors of the CNEX
pitching master workshop in 2014, at
which The Last Stitch won best pitch.
Woo, a family friend of the Sungs, has
been director and executive producer
for Toronto-based Chinese online portal
Sobem for the past 19 years. Sung was
formerly a senior research writer for
both Now TV and TVB Network, and
has published six books since 2001.
WY Wong
Singaporean film and theatre director
Glen Goei, whose credits include Forever Fever and The Blue Mansion, is
turning his hand to a Southeast Asian
vampire tale with Pontianak. Inspired
by local folklore, Goei is collaborating
with cinematographer Christopher
Doyle to create a sensual revenge tale
about the Asian vampire Pontianak, as
famous in Southeast Asia as Dracula is
in Europe.
“Pontianak is a woman who has died
at childbirth. She’s a vampire who, unlike
Dracula, can appear in daytime, and
choose her appearance when she’s not
attacking her victim,” Goei says.
Set in 1950s Malaya, soon after independence from the UK, the story follows
a vampire and her former lover who is
about to marry a new bride.
“On the one hand, it’s a revenge story,
and on the other, it’s a tragic love story
from the point of view of the vampire, as
opposed to the point of view of the men
of the village,” he says.
Although Goei says he is “not really a
horror film person”, he wants to pay
homage to the character-driven CathayKeris and Shaw Brothers horror films he
grew up watching on the TV in the
1960s and ’70s.
Goei is polishing the script with
screenwriter Gavin Yap and hopes to
start shooting at the end of the year.
Tan Bee Thiam is producing through
his 13 Little Pictures (Snakeskin).
Jean Noh
What’s The Next?
A Jade Journey
The Last Stitch
Pontianak
Producers Pema Tseden Production
companies Beijing Himalaya Audio &
Visual Culture Communication Budget
$1m Finance raised to date $80,000
(Beijing Himalaya) Contact Li Rui
Producers Edwin Nazir Production
companies Karuna Pictures, Angka
Fortuna Sinema Budget $300,000
Finance raised to date $120,000 (private
equity) Contact Teddy Soeriaatmadja
Producers Ruby Yang, Alfred Sung
Production companies Repulse Bay
Tailors Budget $180,000 Finance raised
to date N/A Contact Alfred Sung
Producers Tan Bee Thiam Production
Company 13 Little Pictures Budget
$2m Finance raised to date $700,000
(private investors) Contact Tan Bee
[email protected]
www.screendaily.com
[email protected]
Thiam
[email protected]
[email protected]
Buzz films Feature
young people struggling to come to
terms with their lives. Isabella Leong
plays a painter who falls for an underachieving boxer in Taipei. The cast also
includes Joseph Chang, Lawrence Ko
and Lee Sinje. Produced by Taiwan’s
Dream Creek Production and Hong
Kong-based Red On Red, the film marks
Chang’s first as director since Run Papa
Run (2008) and received its world premiere as the opening film of HKIFF.
Contact Central Motion Picture Corp,
Enga Chang [email protected].
tw
Zinnia Flower
Thanatos, Drunk
The Arti: The Adventure Begins
Dir Chang Tso-chi
Hot titles Taiwan
The latest offerings from Taiwan range from dramas directed by Sylvia Chang
and Tom Lin to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first martial-arts film. Liz Shackleton reports
The Arti: The Adventure
Begins
Dir Huang Wen-chang
This $10m fantasy adventure combines
Taiwan’s iconic puppet theatre with 3D
animation. The producers, Puppetmotion Entertainment and Pili International Multimedia, are responsible for
Taiwan’s Pili puppet theatre show,
which is broadcast as a top-rating TV
series and sells 400,000 DVDs every
month. The story follows the son and
daughter of a family wrongly accused of
treason, who are forced to cross the
desert with their wooden robot and a
jealous prince in hot pursuit. Warner
Bros released the film in Taiwan over
Chinese New Year.
Contact Golden Network Asia, Clarence
Tang [email protected]
The Assassin
It Takes Two To Tango
Maverick
Dir Wan Jen
Dir Cheng Wen-tang
Taiwanese New Wave auteur Wan Jen
puts a personal spin on the tense political
relationship between Taiwan and mainland China. A mainland boy travels from
Beijing to Taipei to join his girlfriend,
who he intends to marry, but faces stiff
opposition from her parents who would
prefer her to marry somebody from Taiwan. Eventually the couple’s grandparents step in to broker peace. Chen
Po-cheng and Su Ming-ming head the
cast of the film, which was released in
Taiwan last year and has been selected to
screen in the Auteurs section at HKIFF.
In post, Cheng Wen-tang’s crime drama
tackles issues of social justice through the
story of a cop battling a corrupt councillor
whose son is accused of causing bodily
harm. Produced by Taiwan’s Joint Entertainment International and Dreamosa
Film, it stars Chris Wang, Chien Man-shu
and Chuang kai-hsun. Cheng’s debut
Somewhere Over The Dreamland (2002)
won the Critics’ Week Award at Venice.
His most recent feature Tears (2007)
screened at Busan and Karlovy Vary.
Contact Wan Jen Films, Vigo Fan
[email protected]
The Laundryman
Dir Lee Chung
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s highly anticipated
first foray into the martial-arts genre is
understood to be nearing completion
after shooting on and off for four years
and a lengthy post-production period.
Set during the Tang Dynasty, the film
stars Shu Qi as an assassin who questions her loyalties when she is ordered to
kill the man she was supposed to wed.
Chang Chen and Tsumabuki Satoshi
also star. The $15m film is produced
by Taiwan’s SPOTfilms and China’s
Sil-Metropole Organization.
A strong ensemble cast headlines the feature debut of award-winning short-film
director Lee Chung, including Chang
Hsiao-chuan (GF*BF), Wan Qian (Paradise In Service), Sui Tang (TV series The
Fierce Wife) and award-winning Singaporean actress Yeo Yann Yann (Ilo Ilo).
Produced by Lee Lieh and Roger Huang,
the black comedy revolves around a laundry shop that serves as a front for a group
of contract killers. One of the killers
enlists the help of a psychic when he is
haunted by the ghosts of his victims. In
post-production, the film is being lined
up for release in Taiwan in summer 2015.
Contact Wild Bunch, Olivier Barbier
[email protected]
Contact Ablaze Image, June Wu
[email protected]
Dir Hou Hsiao-hsien
www.screendaily.com
Contact Joint Entertainment,
James Liu [email protected]
Dir Sylvia Chang
Actress-director Sylvia Chang is making
her highly anticipated return to the
director’s chair in this drama about three
Named after the Greek personification of
death, the latest arthouse drama from
Chang Tso-chi (The Best Of Times)
revolves around a slacker in Taipei and
his relationship with his gay brother and
sexually ambiguous gigolo friend. The
brothers are scarred by the death of their
mother in an accident. The film, which
had its world premiere in Berlin’s Panorama section, is also playing at HKIFF
and will open Golden Horse Fantastic
Film Festival in Taipei (April 10-19).
Contact Swallow Wings Films Co,
Gene Yao [email protected]
Zinnia Flower
Dir Tom Shu-Yu Lin
Starring Karena Lam and Shih Chinhang, guitarist for Taiwanese rock band
Mayday, Zinnia Flower revolves around
the friendship between a man who has
lost his pregnant wife and a woman who
lost her fiancé in the same accident. They
share their grief throughout the 100 days
that Buddhist rituals set aside to mourn
the dead. Tom Lin previously directed
award-winning youth drama Winds Of
September (2008) and fantasy drama
Starry Starry Night (2011). Produced by
Atom Cinema, Zinnia Flower is in postproduction for release in the autumn.
Contact Ablaze Image, June Wu
s
[email protected] n
Thanatos, Drunk
Buzz films Feature
Hot titles Southeast Asia
Selected projects from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Jean Noh reports
Mandarin-language film is produced by
Malaysia-based Asia Tropical Films (The
Wedding Diary, Balistik).
Contact Asia Tropical Films Sdn Bhd,
Keoh Chee Ang im.cheeang@gmail.
com
Lulu The Movie (Sing)
Dir Michelle Chong
Farewell, Berlin Wall
Michelle Chong is directing, producing
and starring in Lulu The Movie, based on a
popular character from her satirical comedy series The Noose. Lulu is a girl from
China who comes to Singapore in search
of her one true love and ends up embarking on adventures as a wannabe TV show
fashionista. Lulu The Movie is set to be
completed by the first quarter of 2016.
Chong’s Huat Films is producing, distributing and handling international sales.
1965
1965 (Sing)
Dir Randy Ang
Produced by veteran film-maker Daniel
Yun (Painted Skin), 1965 is a thriller set
in the months leading up to Singapore’s
separation from Malaysia, as a Chinese
girl is abducted and racial tensions boil
over into violence. The film deals with
the stories of immigrants and natives in
the midst of the city state’s unfolding history. It stars Qi Yuwu from Royston Tan’s
881 and 12 Lotus, along with Joanne Peh,
who was in Kelvin Tong’s It’s A Great,
Great World. In post-production.
Contact mm2 Entertainment,
Sim Wee Boon simweeboon@
mm2entertainment.com
3688 (Sing)
Dir Royston Tan
This drama from Royston Tan (12 Lotus)
is about a young parking attendant and
her father who is suffering from dementia. In an attempt to change their lives,
she enters a national talent contest. 3688
will be the feature film debuts of Singaporean singer Joi Chua, hip hop artist
and music producer Shigga Shay and
theatre actor Michael Tan. Liu Ling Ling
(881) also stars. In post-production.
Contact mm2 Entertainment,
Sim Wee Boon simweeboon@
mm2entertainment.com
Farewell, Berlin Wall (Viet)
Dir Nguyen Phan Quang Binh
The new feature from director Nguyen
Phan Quang Binh, best known for Floating Lives, is a drama about a Vietnamese
www.screendaily.com
Contact Huat Films, Diana Foo
[email protected]
Rubbers (Sing)
Dir Han Yew Kwang
Rubbers
woman in Germany who is swept up in
the chaos of the collapsing Eastern Bloc.
She is left by her Russian-educated husband, who escapes across the border, and
is kidnapped by a gangster who later sacrifices himself for her safety. Farewell, Berlin Wall stars former Miss Vietnam World
finalist Ngoc Anh Vu, Gary Daniels (The
Expendables), Bao Son Tran (Flapping In
The Middle Of Nowhere) and David Tran
(Ethan Mao). In post-production.
Contact Vietnam Media Corp
BHD Co Ltd, Nguyen Bao Mai
[email protected]
I’mpossible (Sing)
Dir Gilbert Chan
Award-winning director Gilbert Chan
(S11, Love Matters) and veteran actor Vincent Tee (Blood Ties, S11) have teamed up
to co-direct a martial arts comedy about a
breakdancing delinquent who discovers
he has a talent for martial arts but
becomes entangled in the world of
underground fighting. The $1.1m
coming-of-age film is in pre-production.
Contact Grid_Synergy, Goh Ying Sheng
[email protected]
Kungfu Taboo (Malay)
This sex comedy is directed by Han Yew
Kwang (18 Grams Of Love, When Hainan
Meets Teochew) and stars Yeo Yann Yann,
the Golden Horse award-winning actress
of Ilo Ilo and Marcus Chin (The Wedding
Diary 1 & 2). Rubbers intertwines three
stories of love and how condoms can
help save a marriage, seduce a plumber
and punish a playboy. The film is making
its market debut at Filmart. It had its
world premiere at Singapore International Film Festival last December and is
set for a local release on April 30.
Contact Lau Chee Nien
[email protected]
Vanishing Point (Thai)
Dir Euho
Directed by Euho, martial arts comedy
Kungfu Taboo is making its market premiere at Filmart. The film stars Kara Wai
(At The End Of Daybreak, Rigor Mortis),
with Henry Thia (Money No Enough),
Frederick Lee (Petaling Street Warriors)
and Lim Ching Miau, aka Miau Miau
(Yasmine). After unknowingly rescuing a
Japanese colonel fleeing with a treasure
map of bounty from the Second World
War, the House of the Hundred Martial
Arts endeavours to protect its village
seclusion with strict rules. Once these are
broken, the house and its villagers are
faced with an attack from gangsters. The
Dir Jakrawal Nilthamrong
This debut fiction feature of Thai director
Jakrawal Nilthamrong won a Tiger
Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year. The film starts
with a young journalist who is involved
in a car crash while reporting on a rape
investigation, and then shifts to follow an
older man in search of his runaway
daughter. Screening in Filmart, Vanishing Point is also having its Asian premiere in Hong Kong International Film
Festival’s Young Cinema Competition.
Contact Diversion, Mai Meksawan
s
[email protected] n
EVENTS
10:00 — 12:30
THE NEW SILK ROAD
OF ASIA’S FILM
INDUSTRY: CHALLENGES,
OPPORTUNITIES AND
PARTNERSHIP
Venue The stage, Hall 1,
HKCEC
Conference moderator
Alexander Wan, senior
advisor, China Daily Asia
Pacific
Welcome speech Zhou Li,
publisher and editor-inchief, China Daily Asia
Pacific; Raymond Yip,
deputy executive director,
Hong Kong Trade
Development Council
Keynote speakers
Wilfred Wong Yingwai, chairman, Hong
Kong International
Film Festival Society,
chairman, Asian Film
Awards Academy and
vice-chairman, Hong
Kong Film Development
Council (Hong Kong
SAR); Lee Yong-kwan,
festival director, Busan
International Film
Festival (Korea);
Yasushi Shiina,
director-general, Tokyo
International Film
Festival (Japan); Ma
Runsheng, co-producer/
China distributor
president of China Radio,
Film and Television
Program Exchange
Center (Chinese
mainland)
Panel speakers Pantham
Thongsang, deputy
secretary for academic
affairs, The National
Federation of Motion
Pictures and Contents
Associations (Thailand);
Zhu Huilong, CEO of
Youku Tudou Inc, Heyi
Pictures and senior vicepresident of Youku Tudou
Inc (Chinese mainland);
Yang Xianghua, senior
vice-president of iQIYI.
com (Chinese mainland);
Ann An, president, Desen
International Media
(Chinese mainland);
William Pfeiffer,
CEO, Dragongate
Entertainment Ltd (Hong
Kong SAR); Clifford
Coonan, Asia bureau chief,
The Hollywood Reporter,
Ireland; Raymond Zhou,
columnist/film critic,
China Daily (Chinese
mainland)
10:30 — 12:00
BEAUTIFUL 2015 YOUKU
ORIGINAL MASTER’S
MICROFILM PRESS
CONFERENCE
Venue Event room, Hall
1, HKCEC
12:00 — 13:00
2015 GALLOPING HORSE
PRESS CONFERENCE
Venue The Studio, Hall 1,
HKCEC
12:30 — 14:00
NOWTV, KYOTO & SAPPORO,
‘REGIONS OF JAPAN’ JOINT
ANNOUNCEMENT PRESS
CONFERENCE
1, HKCEC
14:00 — 16:30
DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT
SUMMIT: T FOR
TRANSMEDIA: IMMERSIVE
STORYWORLD AND A
NEW WAY OF AUDIENCE
ENGAGEMENT
Venue The stage, Hall 1,
HKCEC
Conference moderator
Joel Kwong, programme
director, Microwave
International Media
Arts Festival, visiting
fellow, department of
communication design
and digital media, Hong
Kong Design Institute,
Vocational Training
Council
Panel speakers Jeff
Gomez, CEO, Starlight
Runner; Peter Lee,
founder and CEO,
NOLGONG; Chester
Lo, business director
of Asia Pacific, Sun
Mobile Communications
Limited; Gilles
Freissinier, head of
Arte France Digital
Development; Tony
Wong, co-founder
and strategic poet,
YNOT?TONY ®
14:30 — 16:30
PRESS CONFERENCE FOR
OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF
PEARL RIVER CHANNEL ON
HK CABLE TELEVISION
1, HKCEC
14:30 — 17:00
TV WORLD 2015
‘THE FUTURE OF
CROWDFUNDING’
WORKSHOP & DISCUSSION
FORUM
Venue Meeting room
S221, HKCEC
14:30 — 17:30
BRIEFING ON NEW
INITIATIVES OF THE
FILM DEVELOPMENT
FUND — FIRST FEATURE
FILM INITIATIVE / FILM
PRODUCTION GRANT
SCHEME
Venue Meeting rooms
S224-S225, HKCEC
16:00 — 18:00
THE 13TH HAF AWARDS
PRESENTATION CEREMONY
& IQIYI — HAF HAPPY
HOUR
Venue The studio, Hall 1,
HKCEC
17:00 — 18:00
RECEPTION TO CELEBRATE
US-HK PARTNERSHIP AT
FILMART
1, HKCEC
HONG KONG FILMART OFFER FROM $99
ONLINE ONLY
FULL PACKAGE
ScreenBase
Your production and financing information
for the top European territories
Screen International magazine
Up to 10 printed issues a year, plus
special festival and market editions
ScreenDaily.com
Instant access to the latest news and
reviews plus an extensive archive
WAS
$265
$369
NOW
$99
$125
ONLINE:
Visit: subscribe.screendaily.com SDHKF15
Call: +44 (0) 1604 828706 and quote code SDHKF15
FULL:
Visit: subscribe.screendaily.com SCRHKF15
Call: +44 (0) 1604 828706 and quote code SCRHKF15
Online only: Annual US/ROW $99 (rrp $265)| Full package: Annual US/ROW $125 (rrp $369)
*Offer available for new subscribers only. Closes 21.04.2015
www.screendaily.com
Screenings
» Screening times and venues
are correct at the time of going to
press but subject to alteration
Edited by Paul Lindsell [email protected]
09:45
Bus timetable
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
(France) Drama.
127mins. Reel Suspects.
Dir: Antoine Barraud.
Key cast: Bertrand
Bonello, Jeanne Balibar,
Geraldine Pailhas, Joana
Preiss, Barbet Schroeder,
Charlotte Rampling.
A reknowned film-maker
is working on his next
feature. He becomes
obsessed with the idea of
‘monstrosity’ as the central
imagery around which the
film will develop. He starts
to visit museums to find
the perfect painting that
would illustrate this theme.
As the monster starts to
take shape into his mind, a
monstrous red stain starts
to grow on his back.
Meeting room N109-110,
HKCEC
10:00
All About Them
(France) Drama. 90mins.
Versatile. Dir: Jerome
Bonnell. Key cast: Anais
Demoustier, Sophie
Verbeeck, Felix Moati.
Charlotte is cheating
on Micha with Melodie.
Micha, in turn, cheats on
Charlotte but also with
Melodie. Melodie lies to
both of them. She is privy
to each of their lives and is
in love with both of them.
Theatre 2, HKCEC No press
THE DEAL
(South Korea) Horror,
suspense. 102mins. 9Ers
Entertainment. Dir: Son
Young-ho. Key cast: Kim
Sang-kyoung, Kim Sungkyun, Park Sung-woong.
Tae-soo, a veteran cop,
goes after a hit-and-run
case and succeeds in
capturing the serial killer
suspect, Gang-chun. Not
long afterwards, Tae-soo
realises his sister, Sookyung, was the last victim.
Gang-chun, sentenced to
death, refuses to reveal the
whereabouts of the victims’
bodies. Tae-soo and his
brother-in-law Seunghyun’s lives are devastated.
Three years later, Tae-soo
handles a murder case of
a gangster boss and finds
evidence Seung-hyun is the
prime suspect.
Meeting room N201B, HKCEC
www.screendaily.com
From HKCEC to agnes
b. Cinema
09:35, 13:50
From agnes b. Cinema
to HKCEC
11:10, 16:05
a selfish playboy is stuck
with a condom that he
cannot remove.
Theatre 2, HKCEC
Wonogawa
Filmart
FOREVER AND A DAY
(Germany) Documentary.
100mins. Doc & Film
International. Dir: Katja
Von Garnier. Key cast:
The Scorpions.
After 50 years on stages
all around the world, The
Scorpions decided in 2010,
it was time to say their
goodbyes to a rock star
lifestyle and to embark on
their final music tour.
Theatre 1, HKCEC No press
francesca
(Japan) Animation.
30mins. Hokkaido
Cultural Broadcasting Co.
Dir: Hitoshi Kumagai.
Key cast: Yui Makino,
Asami Tano, Tomofumi
Ikezoe, Jin Urayama,
Kenji Hamada.
Francesca travels around
Hokkaido’s tourist spots,
eats the delicious food
and encounters the local
characters.
HKCEC
The Necklace
(Nepal) Drama. 85mins.
Dragon Horse Films. Dir:
Gurung Rudra Bahadur.
Key cast: Manoj Kumar,
Dipti Gurung, Roshni
Karki.
Love blossoms between a
young man and woman
as they journey to a
remote village in Nepal’s
spectacular Mustang
region. Their relationship
is tested after they cross
paths with a poor farm
girl who wears a valuable
gemstone necklace. It
soon becomes the
centrepiece of an unfolding
drama of love, greed and
betrayal.
Meeting room N101B
River Road
(China) Drama.
103mins. Laurel Films
International. Dir: Li
Ruijun. Key cast: Tang
Long, Guo Songtao.
Story of two Yugur ethnic
minority brothers, Bartel
and Adikeer, who take a
journey across the prairies
of northwestern China in
search of their parents.
Meeting room N111-N112,
HKCEC
RUINED HEART
(Philippines, Germany)
Drama, musical. 72mins.
Stray Dogs. Dir: Khavn
De La Cruz. Key cast:
Tadanobu Asano,
Nathalia Acevedo.
A merciless hitman rescues
a prostitute from a violent
incident in a Philippine
slum before the two take
flight.
HKCEC
Sworn Virgin
(Albania, Germany,
Italy, Switzerland)
Drama. 90mins. The
Match Factory. Dir:
Laura Bispuri. Key cast:
Alba Rohrwacher, Lars
Eidinger, Flonja Kodheli,
Emily Ferratello.
The story of a woman who
sacrifices her femininity
for her freedom, and then
decides to wipe out her
11:45
Baby Steps
(US, Taiwan) Drama.
102mins. Media Luna
New Films. Dir: Barney
Cheng. Key cast:
Ah-Leh Gua,
Barney Cheng,
Michaeladam Hamilton.
Danny and his boyfriend
Tate long to have a baby.
When Danny’s mother
finds out about his
plans, she is horrified.
Meeting room N101A,
HKCEC
(Japan) Sci-fi, fantasy.
121mins. Elixir
Entertainment. Dir:
Hiroki Yamaguchi.
One thousand years from
now, a young woman’s life
is at risk in a post-nuclear
sci-fi community as she
investigates who controls
and operates society and
the economy. The walls
start to close in on her as
she gets closer to the truth.
Meeting room N204-205
12:00
honour to become a woman
again.
agnes b. CINEMA! Hong Kong
Arts Centre
Transgression
(France) 97mins. Wide.
Dir: Jean Francois Davy.
Key cast: Jean Francois
Davy, Kitty Kat.
While casting for the
next woman in his film,
Jean-Francois Davy is
captivated by the eighth
actress.
HKCEC
10:05
DUSK 2
(Japan) Horror,
suspense. 77mins. Elixir
Entertainment. Dir:
Meidai Takahashi.
The police find an r&d
medical researcher covered
in a black liquid, wandering
lost in the forest after an
experiment at a secret
installation goes wrong. He
has been working to develop
a regenerative cell that he
hopes can save his dying
girlfriend. But events get
out of control when the cell
takes over her body.
HKCEC
13 Minutes
11:40
The coffin in the
mountain
(China) Drama, horror,
suspense. 119mins.
Lumieres International.
Dir: Xin Yukun. Key
cast: Huo Weimin, Wang
Xiaotian, Sun Li, Cao
Xian, Jia Zhigang, Shao
Shengjie.
A young man tries to get
away from the influence of
his father but accidentally
kills a local ruffian.
HKCEC
11:45
Baby Steps
See box, above
11:50
Rubbers
(Singapore) Comedy.
86mins. 18g Pictures.
Dir: Han Yew Kwang.
Key cast: Marcus Chin,
Julian Hee, Lee Chau
Min, Oon Shu An,
Catherine Sng, Alaric Tay,
Yeo Yann Yann.
An elderly couple’s love is
rekindled with ‘balloon’
condoms; a talking
condom helps a single lady
to seduce a plumber; and
(Germany) Drama.
108mins. Beta Cinema.
Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Key cast: Christian Friedel,
Katharina Schuttler,
Burghart Klaussner,
Johann Von Bulow.
Relates the background
of a failed attack to kill
Adolf Hitler and paints
a suspenseful, emotional
portrait of a resistance
fighter called Georgie.
Theatre 1, HKCEC
Do You Believe?
(US) Drama. 117mins.
Pure Flix/Quality Flix.
Dir: Jonathan M Gunn.
Key cast: Cybil Shepherd,
Alexa Penavega, Mira
Sorvino, Sean Astin.
Follows the journey of a
handful of characters in
interweaving stories of
love, forgiveness, hope and
second chances.
Arts Centre
Esoterica: Manila
(Phillipines) Drama.
99mins. Dir: Elwood
Perez. Key cast: Ronnie
Liang, Federico Olbes,
Adelle Auram vinca
Tanada, Solita del Sol.
»
SCREENINGS
A moral tale of a young
man en route to becoming
a creative artist.
HKCEC
The Pearl Button
(Chile, France, Spain)
Documentary. 82mins.
Pyramide International.
Dir: Patricio Guzman.
The ocean contains the
history of all humanity.
The sea holds the voices of
the Earth and those that
come from space. Water
receives impetus from the
stars and transmits it to
living creatures. Chile, the
largest archipelago in the
world, is a supernatural
landscape of volcanoes,
mountains and glaciers.
These contain the voices
of the indigenous people,
of the first English sailors
and those of its political
prisoners. Some say water
has memory; this film
shows it also has a voice.
No press
Romance
(Japan) Drama. 97mins.
Nikkatsu Corporation.
Dir: Yuki Tanada. Key
cast: Yuko Oshima, Koji
Okura.
Hachiko Hojo is a 26-yearold train car attendant on
the ‘Romance car’ route
from Shinjuku to Hakone.
She was supposed to do her
job like on any other day
and return to Tokyo. Until
Hachiko met him…
Vanishing Point
(Thailand) Drama.
100mins. Dir:
Jakrawal Nilthamrong.
Key cast: Ongart
Cheamcharoenpornkul,
Drunphob Suriyawong.
The story of two men who
are each running away
from suffering.
HKCEC
12:15
Thanatos, Drunk
(Taiwan) Drama.
107mins. Simple View
Production Company. Dir:
Chang Tso-chi. Key cast:
Lee Hong-Chi, Chen JenShuo, Huang Shang-Ho.
The story of an anguished
punk, his gay brother and
their gigolo friend.
HKCEC
Filmart
14:05
3 Beauties
(Venezuela) Comedy.
97mins. Media Luna
New Films. Dir: 3Arlos
Caridad Montero. Key
cast: Diana Pehalver,
Josette Vidal, Fabiola
13:40
AS WE WERE DREAMING
(Germany ) Drama.
117mins. The Match
Factory. Dir: Andreas
Dresen. Key cast: Merlin
Rose, Julius Nitschkoff,
Joel Basman, Frederic
Haselon, Marcel
Heuperman.
A group of East German
friends grow up in the
newly reunified Germany
in the early 1990s.
Theatre 2, HKCEC
13:45
First of May
(US) Drama. 117mins.
Pure Flix/Quality Flix.
Dir: Jonathan M Gunn.
Key cast: Cybil Shepherd,
Alexa PenaVega, Mira
Sorvino, Sean Astin.
Follows a handful of
characters in interweaving
stories of love, forgiveness,
hope and second chances.
HKCEC
13:50
The Little Match
Murder Girl
(Japan) Horror,
suspense. 77mins. Elixir
Entertainment. Dir:
The Blue Hour
Arace, Fabian Moreno.
Perla is a mother
obsessed with turning
one of her daughters into
a beauty queen to fulfil
her own dream.
Meeting room N101A,
HKCEC
Naoyuki Tomomstso.
A TV reporter investigates
a local story of a firebreathing ghost and a
woman wronged 30 years
before.
HKCEC
14:00
(Thailand) Drama.
96mins. Reel
Suspects. Dir: Anucha
Boonyawatana.
Key cast: Attaphan
Poonsawas, Oabnithi
Wiwattanawarang,
Daungjai Hirunsri,
Chaowalit Teangsap,
Nithiroj Simkamtorn,
Panutchai Kittisatima.
Tam, who is gay and
bullied at school, gets to
know Phum, a mysterious
boy on the internet. They
begin a relationship that
will lead Tam to commit the
biggest crime of his life.
HKCEC
Betel Nut Girl
(Hong Kong) Drama.
76mins. Dragon Horse
Films Limited. Dir: Craig
Addison. Key cast: Frank
Bren, Paul Sheehan,
Anne Shie.
The fate of three people
intersect in the days before
a cross-strait political
crisis threatens to engulf
Taiwan.
BIG FATHER, SMALL
FATHER AND OTHER
STORIES
(Vietnam) Drama.
101mins. UDI. Dir: Phan
Dang Di. Key cast: Hai
Yen Do Thi, Vinh Truong,
Phong Nguyen Ha.
A group of friends discover
love, lust and each other as
the new millennium begins
in Vietnam.
HKCEC
DORA
(Switzerland, Germany)
90mins. Wide. Dir: Stina
Werenfels. Key cast:
Victoria Schulz, Jenny
Schily, Lars Eidinger, Urs
Jucker.
After her mother decides
that 18-year-old mentally
disabled Dora no longer
has to take sedating drugs,
the young woman begins
to blossom. But when
the pleasure-loving girl
discovers her sexuality, her
strive for independence
becomes increasingly risky.
Catherine Sng, Alaric Tay,
Yeo Yann Yann.
An elderly couple’s love is
rekindled with ‘balloon’
condoms; a talking
condom helps a single lady
to seduce a plumber; and
a selfish playboy is stuck
with a condom that he
cannot remove.
HKCEC
14:05
3 Beauties
See box, above
The Werewolf Game: The
Villagers Side
(Japan) Horror, suspense.
110mins. Nikkatsu
Corporation. Dir: Izuru
Kumasaka. Key cast:
Nanami Sakuraba, Taiga,
Saika Taketomi.
Who will win, the
werewolves or the villagers?
Ten high school students
are targeted for a deadly,
strategic game.
Meeting room N101A, HKCEC
Nujoom Al-Ghamen. Key
cast: Fatima Alhamili,
Mohammed Alhamili,
Mohammed Fabel Allah.
Fatima Alhameli is the
first Emirati female camel
owner to physically take
part in the Camel Beauty
Pageant competition.
HKCEC
15:45
My Skinny Sister
(Sweden, Germany).
95mins. Wide. Dir:
Sanna Lenken. Key cast:
Rebecka Josephson, Amy
Deasismont, Annika
Hallin, Henrik Norlen.
Just as Stella enters
the exciting world of
adolescence she discovers
that her big sister and role
model Katja is hiding an
eating disorder.
15:30
Chronicle of a Blood
Merchant
HKCEC
(China, France,
US) Documentary.
106mins. CNEX Studio
Corporation. Dir: Du
Haibin.
Follows the protagonist
Xiao Zhao’s life experience.
(South Korea) Drama.
124mins. Finecut. Dir:
Ha Jung-woo, Heo Sam
Kwan. Key cast: Ha Jungwoo, Ha Ji-won.
Story of a man who sells
his blood for his family
whenever in need, even for
his son who is discovered
to be fathered by another.
Rubbers
HKCEC
Arts Centre
(Singapore) Comedy.
86mins. 18g Pictures.
Dir: Han Yew Kwang.
Key cast: Marcus Chin,
Julian Hee, Lee Chau
Min, Oon Shu An,
14:15
A Young Patriot
14:25
15:50
Nearby Sky
NEZHA
(UAE) Documentary.
85mins. Nahar
Productions. Dir:
(China) Drama. 98mins.
China Film International.
Dir: LI Xiaofeng. Key
»
www.screendaily.com
Asian Film Market
Oct 3-6, 2015
Registration Starts July 1
October 1-10, 2015
To learn more,
www.biff.kr
www.asianfilmmarket.org
Visit
Asian Project Market
Submission Deadline
June 15
Asian Cinema Fund
Submission Deadline
Post-production April 20
Asian Network of Documentary April 20
Asian Film Academy
Submission Deadline
April 30
SCREENINGS
Editorial office: Room G202,
second floor, HKCEC, 1 Expo
Drive, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Filmart stand: 1E-F27
Editorial
Tel +852 2582 8958
Dailies editor and Asia
editor Liz Shackleton,
[email protected]
Editor Matt Mueller, matt.
[email protected]
News editor Michael Rosser,
michael.rosser@screendaily.
com
Reviews editor Finn
Halligan, finn.halligan@
screendaily.com
Reporter Jean Noh,
[email protected]
Filmart
cast: Li Jiaqi, Li Haofei,
Chen Jin.
Li Xiaolu, 16, meets the
bookish student in class,
Wang Xiaobing. They
become best friends.
HKCEC
16:00
A Man from Manchuria
(China) Crime. 86mins.
Individual Picture
Studio Dir: Tang-Di.
Key cast: Liu Zheng,
Liu XiaoMei.
A man escapes to his home
town after he commits
murder.
HKCEC
Brush With Danger
(Indonesia) Action,
adventure, crime.
90mins. Vision Films.
Dir: Livi Zheng. Key
cast: Livi Zheng, Ken
Zheng, Nikita Breznikov,
Norman Newkirk.
A martial arts fighter and
a painter meet a mysterious
art dealer, who promises
to make their dreams
come true… only to get
them embroiled in Seattle’s
criminal underworld.
HKCEC
Greenery will bloom
again
(Italy) Comedy. 80mins.
Rai Com. Dir: Ermanno
Olmi. Key cast: Claudio
Santamaria, Alessandro
Sperduti, Francesco
Formichetti, Andrea Di
16:15
the Werewolf Game:
The Beast Side
(Japan) Horror,
suspense. 112mins.
Nikkatsu Corporation.
Dir: Izuru Kumasaka.
Key cast: Tao Tsuchiya,
Aoi Morikawa, Misato
Aoyama.
One day 10 Japanese
high school students,
Maria, Camillo Grassi.
First World War, Italian
North-Eastern Front
after the 1917 bloody
battles on the Altipiano.
The story unfolds in
the space of one night.
Events follow one after
the other without any
kind of pattern but every
story told in the film is
a true story. And since
the past belongs to the
memory, everyone can
recall it.
Meeting room N101A, HKCEC
Have a song on your
lips
(Japan) Drama. 132mins.
Asmik Ace. Dir: Takahiro
Miki. Yui Aragaki, Kenta
Kiritani, Hikari Ishida,
Tae Kimura.
Yuri Kashiwagi returns to
her home town for the first
time in many years as a
substitute music teacher.
HKCEC
It Takes Two to Tango
(Taiwan) Drama.
including our heroine
Yuka Yokoyama,
are kidnapped and
forced into playing the
deadly werewolf game.
This is actually Yuka’s
second time playing
the game but this time
she has been chosen
to play the part of the
werewolf.
Meeting room N201B
102mins. Wan Jen Films
Co. Dir: Wan Jen.
Key cast: Lee Tsung-i,
Wang Lo-yuan, Chen
Po-cheng, Su Ming-ming.
Chinese mainlander
Zhao goes to Taiwan to
pursue the love of his life,
Shin-ye. However, due
to the historical turmoil
between Taiwan and
mainland China, Shin-ye’s
family refuses to let Zhao
marry her. As Shin-ye’s
pregnancy comes to light,
Zhao’s parents travel to
Taiwan to salvage the
situation.
else they all will be cursed
and die. One day, Bak Wu
accidentally breaks the
rules to save an old lady.
Theatre 2, HKCEC
16:10
ATA
(China) Drama. 92mins.
Chinese Shadows. Dir:
Chakme Rinpoch. Key
cast: Wang Ning, Jiao
Gang, Meng Tsangyu,
Tsan Liang.
Tianyu is a sightless child
who dreams about a life
different from the disabled
ping-pong champion
carreer that his single
mother is planning for him.
HKCEC
Borderless
Theatre 1, HKCEC
(Iran) Children’s, drama,
war. Taat Films. Dir:
Amirhossein Asgari.
Key cast: Alireza Baledi/
Arash Mehraban.
A boy fishing in solitude
on a grounded ship at
the zero-point border has
his peace disturbed by a
mysterious stranger.
Kungfu Taboo
HKCEC
(Malaysia) Action,
adventure. 101mins.
Chinese Film Association
Of Malaysia. Dir: Euho.
Key cast: Kara Wai,
Henry Thia, Miau,
Frederick Lee.
In the legend, there were
four masters fighting for
‘Geng Chau’. Bak Wu’s
later generation have to
follow ridiculous rules
16:15
the Werewolf Game: The
Beast Side
See box, above
16:30
Brave Rabbit 2: Crazy
Circus
(US, China) Action,
adventure, animation,
children’s, sci-fi, fantasy.
90mins. All Rights
Entertainment. Dir: Xian
Lin Zeng.
The peaceful town of
Chuang Tang, inhabited by
rabbits, hosts the famous
‘Wish’ ceremony, where
rabbits pray to make
their wishes come true.
Tang Tang’s father is an
ingenious inventor and is
creating a machine that
would increase the power of
the wishes. Unfortunately,
evil characters are trying
to steal the machine and
possess the wishes.
Meeting room N201A
By invitation only
16:30
Iron Girl — Ultimate
Weapon
(Japan) Action,
adventure. 84mins. Crei.
Dir: Kenichi Fujiwara.
Key cast: Kirara Asuka,
Hiroaki Iwanaga, Asuka
Kishi, Ryunosuke
Kawamura, Asami, Yuri
Morishita.
The super-heroine in the
sexy suit returns.
HKCEC
18:00
Make Room
(Japan) Comedy. 85mins.
Spirits Project. Dir: Kei
Morikawa. Key cast: Aki
Morita, Beni Ito, Riri
Kuribayashi, Nanami
Kawakami.
A film set in the make-up
room of a porn film set.
Group head of production
and art Mark Mowbray,
mark.mowbray@screendaily.
com
Sub-editors Kim Harding,
Paul Lindsell, Jon Lysons,
Adam Richmond, Richard
Young
Advertising
Tel +852 5131 5309
Sales manager
Scott Benfold +44 7765
257 260, scott.benfold@
screendaily.com
Sales consultant
Ingrid Hammond +852 5131
5309, ingridhammond@
mac.com
Production manager
Jonathon Cooke, jonathon.
[email protected]
Commercial director
Nadia Romdhani
Group commercial director
Alison Pitchford
Chief executive officer,
MBI Conor Dignam
Printer G.L. Graphic &
Printing Ltd, level 1-8, Howard
Factory Building, 66 Tsun Yip
Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
Published by Media
Business Insight Ltd (MBI)
Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton
Street, London EC2A 4HJ
Subscription customer
services
Tel: +44 1604 828 706
E-mail: help@subscribe.
screendaily.com
HKCEC
www.screendaily.com

at filmart

Transcription

Similar documents

Naqsh Short Films

tierney gearon - Zeitgeist Films

CARPRO 1 DAY. ENTRY LEVEL

flyer

Film quiz 12 May 2011

NCFD – Trivia! () - National Canadian Film Day

Bandyke Moving Pictures

ergophobia - Student Cuts

BY THE WAY, BY CARMEN LEVYмGREEN

Join us for a free screening of First Generation —