Screen Filmart 2015 Day 3

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25 2015

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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”.

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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

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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

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reviews edited by fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

Murmur of The Hearts

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

6 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015

Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan 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.”

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ScreeningS, page 19

A Man from Manchuria

HOng KOng In brIEf

Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan

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.

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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, 307148011@qq.com 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 info@making-film.com

Producer Naomi Kawase Production company

Producers Cai Shangjun Production companies Digital Jungle Budget $1m Contact Lu Yulai

8 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015

Nara International Film Festival Organising Committee Budget $200,000 Finance raised to date $100,000 (Nara government, private sponsors) Contact Shinji Kitagawa kitagawa@nara-iff.jp

lvyulai@126.com

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 ddenise@bayoo.tv

Bober

office@coproductionoffice.eu

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 katja.adomeit@gmail.com

March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 9

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

Project’s country of origin China

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

tanpinpin@gmail.com

Diep

toilahoangdiep@gmail.com

$10m (Macau Foundation, private equity) yimho228@yahoo.com

Contact Yim Ho

nkomuro@nikkatsu.co.jp

10 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015

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

Project’s country of origin China

Project’s country of origin

Project’s country of origin

Project’s country of origin

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

liruiwhy@sina.com.cn

www.screendaily.com

sung.rbt@gmail.com

Thiam

bthiam@gmail.com

karuna.pictures@gmail.com

March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 11

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 enga_chang@movie.com. 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 clarence@goldnetasia.com

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 jenwan101@gmail.com

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 obarbier@wildbunch.eu

Contact Ablaze Image, June Wu junewu@ablazeimage.com

Dir Hou Hsiao-hsien

www.screendaily.com

Contact Joint Entertainment, James Liu james@j-ent.com.tw

Murmur Of The Hearts 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 progra@ms38.hinet.net

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 junewu@ablazeimage.com n

Thanatos, Drunk

March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 13

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 diana@huatfilms.com.sg

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 baomai@bhdvn.com

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 yingsheng@gridsynergy.sg

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 ask@18gpictures.com

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 films@diversion-th.com n

March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 15

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

Venue Event room, Hall 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

Venue Event room, Hall 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

Venue Event room, Hall 1, HKCEC

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ScreeningS

» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration

edited by Paul Lindsell paullindsell@gmail.com

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

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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.

Meeting room n202-203, 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.

Meeting room n104-105, 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.

Meeting room n102-103, 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.

Meeting room n209-210, 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.

Meeting room n104-n105, 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. agnes b. cineMA! Hong Kong Arts centre

eSOTericA: MAniLA

(Phillipines) Drama.

99mins. Dir: Elwood Perez. Key cast: Ronnie Liang, Federico Olbes, Adelle Auram vinca Tanada, Solita del Sol.

March 25, 2015 Screen International at Filmart 19

»

SCREENINGS

A moral tale of a young man en route to becoming a creative artist.

Meeting room N102-N103, 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.

Meeting room N101B, HKCEC 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…

Meeting room N201B, HKCEC

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.

Meeting room N111-N112, 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.

Meeting room N109-N110, 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.

Meeting room N209-N210, HKCEC

13:50 tHE littlE MatCH MurdEr Girl

(Japan) Horror, suspense. 77mins. Elixir Entertainment. Dir:

20 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015

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.

Meeting room N206-207, 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.

Meeting room N111-N112, 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.

Meeting room N101B, HKCEC

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.

Meeting room N104-N105, 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.

Meeting room N202-203, 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.

Meeting room N109-N110, 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.

Meeting room N101B, HKCEC

15:30 CHroNiClE of a Blood MErCHaNt

Meeting room N102-103, 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

Meeting room N204-N205, HKCEC

agnes b. CiNEMa! Hong Kong 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 »

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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, lizshackleton@gmail.com editor Matt Mueller, matt. mueller@screendaily.com News editor Michael Rosser, michael.rosser@screendaily. com reviews editor Finn Halligan, finn.halligan@ screendaily.com reporter Jean Noh, hjnoh2007@gmail.com

Filmart

cast: Li Jiaqi, Li Haofei, Chen Jin. Li Xiaolu, 16, meets the bookish student in class, Wang Xiaobing. They become best friends.

Meeting room N202-N203, 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.

Meeting room N206-N207, 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.

Meeting room N102-103, 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.

Meeting room N111-N112, HKCeC

It tAKes tWo to tANGo

(Taiwan) Drama.

22 Screen International at Filmart March 25, 2015

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.

Meeting room N104-N105, 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

Meeting room N109-N110, 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.

Meeting room N204-205, 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. cooke@mb-insight.com 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

Meeting room N202-203, HKCeC

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