Chinese comedy Green Wave (pictured above) is set to open this year’s Far East Film Festival (FEFF, April 24-May 2) in Udine, Italy, which will also present Taiwanese actress and filmmaker Sylvia Chang with a lifetime achievement award.
Two films starring Chang are screening at the festival, representing past and present – Tsui Hark’s restored classic Shanghai Blues and recent family drama Daughter’s Daughter, directed by Huang Xi.
Directed by Xu Lei, Green Wave is about a struggling scriptwriter in Beijing and explores the Chinese phenomenon of tangping (lying flat) as a reaction against an ultra competitive society. FEFF organisers said the film reflects a rising trend of mainstream Chinese movies exploring changes in contemporary society, also including Xu Zheng’s Upstream, Shao Yihui’s Her Story and Yin Lichuan’s Like A Rolling Stone, which will also screen at the festival.
In total, FEFF will screen 75 films, including seven world premieres, 15 international premieres, 20 European premieres and 19 Italian premieres. The festival will close with Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie, a live-action adaptation of a manga about battles between Japanese record labels.
Offerings from Hong Kong include the extended version of record-breaking hit The Last Dance, directed by Anselm Chan, Anthony Pun’s Cesium Fallout, Oliver Chan’s Montages Of A Modern Motherhood and Papa, directed by Philip Yung.
Japanese titles include Daihachi Yoshida’s Teki Cometh, which won the top award at last year’s Tokyo film festival, Hideki Takeuchi’s manga adaptation Cells At Work, Akiko Ohku’s She Taught Me Serendipity and Shinzo Katayama’s Lust In The Rain. Korean films at this year’s FEFF include Busan New Currents winner Land Of Morning Calm, directed by Park Ri-woong, E.oni’s Love In The Big City, and Kwon Hyuk-jae’s occult thriller Dark Nuns.
Titles screening at the festival from Southeast Asia include Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine, Janus Victoria’s Diamonds In The Sand, Thai horror Death Whisperer 2, Vietnamese horror Betting With Ghost and Next Stop, Somewhere, from Malaysian filmmakers James Lee and Jeremiah Foo.
The festival will also host ‘Mondo, Mizuki, Mondo Yokai’, an exhibition of artwork, magazines, books and video documents related to manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, best known for his manga about ‘yokai’ or monsters, along with a retrospective of Asian monster movies.
Restored classics also include Lino Brocka’s Bona and Barking Dogs Never Bite, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho.