Italy’s Far East Film Festival (FEFF), scheduled to take place in Udine from April 24-May 2, has announced its full line-up, including a double bill of opening films, Chinese blockbuster YOLO and Korean action comedy Citizen Of A Kind.
Based on Japanese cult movie 100 Yen Love, Jia Ling’s YOLO was recently a huge hit in China over the Lunar New Year holidays, grossing around $480m (RMB3.46bn). Park Young-ju’s Citizen Of A Kind, also a hit in its home territory, tells the story of an unemployed single mum who falls victim to an internet scam.
FEFF also announced that Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is attending the festival to receive a Golden Mulberry Award for Lifetime Achievement. He will also conduct a masterclass and present three titles – recent thriller Under The Light and the restored versions of To Live and Raise The Red Lantern. To Live will also play as the closing film of the festival following the Golden Mulberry awards ceremony.
Taiwanese producer Chiu Fu-sheng, who produced To Live and Raise The Red Lantern, will also receive a Golden Mulberry Award for Lifetime Achievement at FEFF. Chiu was instrumental in getting the two films restored, along with three other films he produced – Johnnie To’s The Mission and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Puppetmaster and A City Of Sadness.
In total, FEFF will present 74 films from 11 countries, including 15 word premieres, 24 international premieres, 19 European premieres and 13 Italian premieres. The line-up includes recent Korean hits 12.12: The Day and Exhuma; Japan-Taiwan co-production 18×2 Beyond Youthful Days; Hong Kong filmmaker Nick Cheuk’s Time Still Turns The Pages, and Filipino queer comedy Becky & Badette.
The festival is also screening a selection of “Greatest Hits” from 1980s and 1990s Asian cinema, including Vietnamese filmmaker Tony Bui’s Three Seasons and films from Lee Myung-see, Somai Shinji and Suo Masayuki.
In addition, FEFF will present a concert of music and images by Japanese film composer Ishibashi Eiko, including sequences from GIFT, the silent film that Ryusuke Hamaguchi wrote and directed for her.
Meanwhile, FEFF’s industry platform, Focus Asia, will host the All Genres Project Market and Far East In Progress works-in-progress showcase, as well as the Ties That Bind workshop and a distribution workshop in partnership with Europa Distribution.
Focus Asia and Ties That Bind are also collaborating with Cannes Marche du Film to construct a programme in two stages – the first at the end of April within Focus Asia and the second in Cannes as part of the Spotlight Asia project.
Around 20 international producers will be offered a tailor-made programme with support from national funding bodies to encourage collaboration between Europe and Asia. As part of this, the FFA – German Federal Film Board will bring a delegation of German producers who wish to explore and co-produce Asian films through the recent launch of a minority co-production fund.