40th Hong Kong International Film Festival
If you’re a culture vulture, especially of the celluloid persuasion, and you’re travelling to or through Hong Kong over the next week, be sure to check out the 40th Hong Kong International Film Festival. It finishes Monday April 4 so there’s not much time left, but there’s still some great films on offer coming from all over the world. This year there are, 369 screenings, 248 films from 66 countries and regions, 8 of which are world premieres, 4 are international premieres and 51 are Asian premieres.
HKIFF is one of the oldest film festivals in Asia whose global reputation was developed through showing Asian films and its retrospectives when Asian and Hong Kong cinema were not well known to the international community. Established by the Hong Kong Urban Council, the first HKIFF was held in the summer of 1977 with a focus on world cinema, while the second HKIFF included its pioneering Hong Kong cinema retrospective on Cantonese films of the 1950s. In 1978, the HKIFF began publishing its acclaimed bi-lingual publications that have since been a notable hallmark of the HKIFF Society.
HKIFF’s international reputation has been built on intelligent programming along with its devotion to the discovery of new areas of filmmaking in Asia and China, and its exceptional work for Hong Kong cinema, seminars and acclaimed publications which has given it a unique and sought after international focus. The HKIFF is now Hong Kong’s largest cultural event and is one of Asia’s most reputable platforms for filmmakers, film professionals and filmgoers from all over the world to launch new work and experience outstanding films. Screening over 280 titles from 50 countries in 11 major cultural venues in Hong Kong, the HKIFF reaches an audience of over 600,000 and 4,500 business executives attending the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market (FILMART).
The 40th Hong Kong International Film Festival presents “Focus on Korean Cinema”, a programme of new and classic films from one of the world’s most dynamic centres of popular and art-house films. The HKIFF also will host a seminar with South Korean filmmaker PARK Ki-yong on the challenges facing the global film industry.
The “Focus on Korean Cinema” series includes: the Asian Premiere of The Bacchus Lady (2016) by director E J-yong, about a 65-year-old woman who sells sexual favors to old men; KWON Oh-kwang’s debut feature, Collective Invention (2015), an outrageously hilarious satire on media, pop culture, corruption and corporate greed; director WOO Min-ho’s Inside Men (2015), a slick thriller about corrupt politicians, with international superstar LEE Byung-hun; and renowned filmmaker IM Kwon-taek’s classic The Surrogate Woman (1987), a story of forbidden love starring KANG Soo-yeon, who won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. Directors and casts of The Bacchus Lady and Collective Invention will attend the screenings.
The HKIFF has hosted a film seminar, “Training for a Global Industry”. South Korea’s Dankook University, led by the Busan International Film Festival’s co-founder KIM Dong-ho, prepares its students for the international film industry through co-productions with Japan, China and Australia. PARK Ki-yong, a leading filmmaker of the new Korean cinema, and Roger GARCIA, executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, discussed the challenges for film students in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalised industry.
Check this link for more information about the titles of films being shown plus lots of information about their production, actors and more:-
