Terracotta 2013 = East Asia x 27

Tags

Film Festival, London, Terracotta, trailers

Here it is… the much awaited line-up for this year’s Terracotta Film Festival, bigger and better than ever. It’s divided into four sections (Current Films, Terror Cotta,  Spotlight on Indonesia and In Memoriam of Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui), all screening at the Prince Charles Cinema (June 6–9), except for the Indonesia section, which will be held at the ICA (June 11-15). Further festival highlights include masterclasses and a short film competition (with a trip to Hong Kong as top prize).

Because it’s such a lengthy list of films, I’ve limited myself to one-sentence synopses. If it grabs your interest, watch the trailer and/or hop over to the official festival website, where longer summaries are featured.

The official website has just gone live, although links for booking (which is meant to open today) don’t yet work. I would expect booking to be available some time later this afternoon.

May 2013 Events

Tags

#Women on Screen, BFI, Derby, Film Festival, Korean Film Night, Leicester, London, Miyazaki Hayao, Prince Charles Cinema, Studio Ghibli, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Year of 4 Actors

May brings Cannes with many exciting film premieres. With the English Channel in our way, we’ll however have to make do with events on this island instead. Luckily, a whole lot is on offer this month, in all corners of the UK – Derby, London, Leicester and even Inverness. You can get a taste of Hong Kong cinema as well as watch quite a number of Japanese olden goldies (directed by Ozu Yasushiro and Kurosawa Akira, among others) at various cinemas and festivals across the country. There is also the Chinese Visual Festival, but nothing Taiwanese this month. Korean films fare a bit better – though only because our beloved Korean Cultural Centre (KCCUK) is, as always, screening two films as part of its Year of 4 Actors Korean Film Nights for year. The good news, however, is that the KCCUK has just launched another film season, Women on Screen, which commences in May and will run until August, doubling the monthly offering of screenings.

For trailers, click on film titles (where available).

Note: As always, I’ll update this post if I hear about any other events.

Last updated: 6/5/2013

Coming to Cannes in 2013: Koreeda, Miike, Zhangke & Co

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Cannes, Film Festival, Koreeda Hirokazu

As May approaches, so does the Cannes, which is of course one of the highlights of the European film festival calendar. This morning the line-up was revealed, with a number of films from Asia to look foward to. I have listed them all below, with trailer and synopses as far as they are available.

Asiana at Sci-Fi-London in May

Tags

BFI, Film Festival, London, sci-fi

Every year Sci-Fi-London comes to town and brings, as its title suggests, “all things science fiction” (quote) with it, meaning apocalypse and robot galore among other things.

The festival will be running from April 30 to May 6, 2013 this year, with a costume parade for “[c]osplayers, zombies, stormtroopers, steampunks, daywalkers, superheroes” or whichever other fantasy character tickles your fancy starting off the fun on April 28.

Films, which will screen at the Stratford Picture House and the BFI Southbank, come from all over the world, with multiple offerings from Asia included:

World Premiere, Character Descriptions and Image Gallery for Shinkai’s「言の葉の庭」(Kotonoha no Niwa)

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Film Festival, Shinkai Makoto, world premiere

It’s funny sometimes how things are right before your eyes, but some how you don’t see them. Like the fact that the title of Shinkai’s forthcoming film has Kanji strokes in the form of leaves. How could I only notice it now?

Well, this isn’t what I mean to be writing about today, but the real topics of this post are a) the world premiere of the film, b) further character descriptions and c) a new image gallery for Kotonoha no Niwa.

April 2013 Events

Tags

BFI, Dublin, Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, Korean Film Night, Leeds, London, Miyazaki Hayao, Prince Charles Cinema, Shinkai Makoto, Studio Ghibli, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Year of 4 Actors

April, April… this year is flying by… I would rather not think about it though. Instead, let’s just see what April has in store for us, film-wise mostly but also otherwise as there are some exciting events at the London Book Fair and elsewhere too.

Note: As always, I’ll update this post if I hear about any other events.

Last updated: 17/4/2013

Leesong Hee-il Trilogy Review: 백야 (White Night), 지난여름, 갑자기 (Suddenly, Last Summer) & 남쪽으로 간다 (Going South)

Tags

BFI, Film Festival, LLGFF, London, London Lesbian Gay Film Festival

Year: 2012
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean
Director: Leesong Hee-il
Screenplay:  Leesong Hee-il
Cinematography: Yoon Ji-Yoon (Baekya)
Cast: Won Tae-hee, Li Yi-kyung (Baekya); Kim Young-jae, Han Joo-wan (Jinanyeoreum, Gapjagi); Kim Jae-heung, Chun Shin-hwan (Namjjokeuro Ganda)
Runtime: 75 min, 37 min, 45 min
Distribution: CinemaDal

Trailers: see below

Seen at the 27th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at two separate screenings.

Although there was not all that much on offer from South East Asia at this year’s London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, the BFI did do a mini-feature on Leesong Hee-il, whom they called “one of the most exciting contemporary gay Asian directors” in their festival programme. Leesong has, by now, quite a number of films to his name, all featuring a gay storyline in one way or another. His cinematic debut came in 2004 with a short featured in 동백꽃 (Dongbaegkkoch/ Camellia Project, 2004), but he is probably better known for his 2006 film 후회하지 않아 (Huhoehaji Anha/No Regret). In 2009 the director contributed to the 황금시대 (Hwang-geumsidae/Short! Short! Short!) omnibus project and also made the feature-length 탈주 (Talju/Break Away, 2009), finally following up in 2012 with the ‘One Night and Two Days’ trilogy of 백야 (Baekya/White Night), 지난여름, 갑자기 (Jinanyeoreum, Gapjagi/Suddenly, Last Summer) and 남쪽으로 간다 (Namjjokeuro Ganda/Going South), three unconnected stories which all began as shorts but the first of which was later extended into a 75-minute movie.

Review: 「夢売るふたり」 (Yume Uru Futari/Dreams for Sale)

Tags

BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London

Year: 2012
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Director: Nishikawa Miwa
Screenplay: Nishikawa Miwa
Cinematography: Yanagishima Katsumi
Soundscore: more rhythm
Cast: Matsu Takako, Abe Sadao, Tanaka Rena, Kimura Tae, Suzuki Sawa, Ando Tamae, Ebara Yuka
Runtime: 137 min

Trailer:

Seen at the film’s UK premiere at the 56th BFI London International Film Festival.

Yume Uru Futari appeared on quite a number of Top 10 Films of 2012 lists. Tom Mes, Catherine Munroe Hotes and Eija Niskanen all counted it among their favourites in a Midnight Eye feature and Jason Grey (Loaded Films) included it as part of the “10% goodness” of cinema of the past year over at Wildgrounds, to name some examples.

Review: 2012 Hong Kong Fresh Wave Shorts

Tags

Film Festival, London, Pan Asia Film Festival

Seen at the ICA as part of the Pan-Asia Film Festival. A special Thank you! goes to the Coventry University East Asia Film Society (CUEAFS) for two free tickets.

Although I watch quite a lot of films, there are generally few shorts among them. I like to be entertained for an hour or two because it’s a length that allows a decent amount of development in a story and characters. When there is a film festival, it is for this reason that when I have to choose between seeing a feature film or multiple 5-, 10-, 20-minute clips, I’ll habitually always go for the former and leave the latter as an afterthought – as also happened when the Pan-Asia Film Festival rolled around. Then CUEAFS had a ticket competition for the HK Fresh Wave Shorts screening on Twitter and somehow I got lucky (and I didn’t even mean to… only retweeted to spread the news about the competition).

Leeds Young People’s Film Festival: J-Anime x 3 and Korean Adoption Anime Docu

Tags

Film Festival, Leeds, Miyazaki Hayao, Studio Ghibli

Couleur de peau: Miel.

The Leeds Young People’s Film Festival, the children’s offshoot of the regular festival, released its programme yesterday. The festival runs from March 25 until April 5 and tickets are fairly cheap (£2 for under-19, £5/£4 for adults), so if you live in the area, treat yourself. There are a few films from Japan & Korea:

Review:《女朋友。男朋友》(Nyeobungu. Nambungu/GF*BF) and Q&A

Tags

Film Festival, London, Pan Asia Film Festival

Year: 2012
Country: Taiwan
Language: Mandarin, Min Nan
Director: Yang Ya-che
Screenplay: Yang Ya-che
Cinematography: Jake Pollock
Soundscore: Baby C.
Cast: Chang Hsiao-chuan (Joseph), Gwai Lunmei, Rhydian Vaughan
Runtime: 105 min
Distribution: Atom Cinema
Trailer:

Seen at the film’s European Premiere and the Opening Night Gala of the Pan Asia Film Festival. It will also be shown on March 17, 2013 in Glasgow.

Note: This review is a little spoilerish – somehow I ended up detailing quite a bit of what happens.

It is a little strange to watch a film and realise that you were in the middle of some of the history playing out on the screen, but, having been a child, you never noticed any of it all. If someone had asked me before the Nyeobungu. Nambungu screening if Taiwan ever had martial law, I would have shrugged; if someone had inquired whether anything much exciting was going on in the Taipei of the early 1990s, I would have said “not really”, for the most historically significant event I remember from one summer in 1989 (when I lived there for three months) and from a year and half between 1990 and 1991 (when I lived there again) is the breakout of the Gulf War because it meant that the guards at my USAmerican school started checking everyone’s IDs in fear of a potential retributory attack.

Review: 「ライク・サムワン・イン・ラブ」 (Raiku Samuwan in Rabu/Like Someone in Love)

Tags

BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London, trailers

Year: 2012
Country: France/Japan
Language: Japanese
Director: Abbas Kiarostami
Screenplay: Abbas Kiarostami
Cinematography: Yanagijima Katsumi
Soundscore: Mohamadrez Delpak, Kikuchi Nobuyuki
Cast: Takanashi Rin, Okuno Tadashi, Kase Ryō, Denden
Runtime: 109 min

Trailer:

Seen at the film’s UK premiere at the 56th BFI London International Film Festival. Like Someone in Love will be released in select British cinemas via New Wave Films on June 21, 2013.

Like Someone in Love premiered in Cannes last year, where it sharply divided the critics, leaving some rather disenchanted, if not highly irritated, in particular with its rather abrupt ending. “[T]he curtain comes down with an arbitrary crash” noted Peter Bradshaw, resident film critic for The Guardian, while Mike D’Angelo (A.V. Club) gave it a “WTF” rating, declaring the final scene “a startling, truncated conclusion that seems completely out of proportion with the lazy, anti-urgent meandering that precedes it”, ending with the words ”I know there’s something happening here, but I don’t know what it is”.

Review:「ゼロの焦点」(Zero no Shōten/Zero Focus) and Q&A

Tags

adaptation, Film Festival, ICA, Japan Foundation, London

Year: 2009
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Director: Inudo Isshin
Adaptation from: Matsumoto Seicho’s bestselling novel of the same title (1959)
Screenplay:  Inudo Isshin, Nakazono Kenji
Cinematography: Takahiro Tsutai
Soundscore: Ueno Koji (Theme song: Nakajima Miyuki)
Cast: Hirosue Ryoko, Nakatani Miki, Kimura Tae, Nishijima Hidetoshi, Kaga Takeshi, Nomaguchi Tori, Sugimoto Tetta, Kuroda Fukumi, Honda Hirotarō
Runtime: 131 min
Distribution: Toho (Japan)

Trailer:

Seen at the ICA as part of the Japan Foundation’s 10th Touring Film Programme “Once Upon a Time in Japan”. The film screened February 3 (sold out) and 5 (nearly sold out), with a Q&A with the director following on both days. The JPF also organised a Director’s Talk with Inudo on February 6. For further screenings in the UK see Bonus Bits below.

To make an author’s most popular bestseller into a successful film can never be easy, but imagine the challenge if that the story has already been told on the screen multiple times – once as a film (1961, dir. by Nomura Yoshitaru), sixfold as a TV dorama (1961, Fuji TV; 1971, NKH; 1976, Nippon Television; 1983, TBS; 1991, again Nippon Television and 1994, NKH Nagoya). It also doesn’t help if the tale in question is a mystery drama and everyone, thanks to the original’s and the numerous screen adaptations’ popularity, already knows whodunnit. Yet this is the challenge that Inudo Isshin, commissioned by the production studio, took on when setting out to make another Zero no Shōten film in time for the 100th anniversary of the novelist’s birthdate.

February 2013 Events

Tags

Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Film Festival, Glasgow, ICA, Japanese Embassy London, KCCUK, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham, Sheffield, Studio Ghibli

You are not going to run out things to do (or, rather, films to watch) in February, regardless of where you are in the UK.

Note: I’m not really providing synopses this time round, there are simply too many films. Just click on the external links, where you’ll find more info.

As always, if I’ve missed anything, get in touch!

LAST UPDATED: 6/2/2013

Fifth Pan-Asia Film Festival Coming in March

Tags

Asia House UK, Film Festival, London, Pan-Asia

Asia House released its cultural programme for February and March 2013 today, with some first details on its Pan-Asia Film Festival which it has been organising annually since 2009.

Trailer Weekly #64

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Film Festival, London, Raindance, trailers, Tsumabuki Satoshi

I’m still playing catch-up with the Trailer Weeklies. Aside from that missing #60, I’m a week behind… but I’ll keep trying, maybe I can get that #65 out before next Sunday. I should probably start scrutinising all those “Best films of 2012″ lists that tend appear around this time of the year (which I like to read for inspiration, but hate to create myself).

Prelude to Once Upon a Time in Japan (JPF Touring Film Programme)

Tags

Film Festival, Japan Foundation, London

More in my inbox from the Japan Foundation regarding the upcoming tenth instalment of their Touring Film Programme: in the week before the event launches at the ICA (London) on February 1st, a number of related talks are scheduled at the Japan Foundation. As they write:

To complement the film programme and prior to its start, The Japan Foundation presents three special seminars, providing interesting and unique spins on Japanese cinema and culture, shedding light related to this year’s theme and selection.

(Note: Descriptions, below, of the seminars are directly taken from the JPF newsletter.)

Once Upon a Time in Japan: 10th Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

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Birmingham, Edinburgh, Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, ICA, Japan Foundation, Katabuchi Sunao, London

Premiere Japan somehow never happened, but fortunately the Japan Foundation’s Touring Film Programme continues to exist – and that I know for certain thanks to an email in my inbox a few days ago, which came with all the details for the 10th edition of the event. Entitled “Once Upon a Time in Japan: Reinventing the Past Through the Eyes of Japanese Contemporary Filmmakers”, this (well, next) year’s focus is on the past. The “contemporary filmmakers” in the line-up include Miike Takashi, Katabuchi Sunao, Koreeda Hirokazu and Inudō Isshin among others.

UPDATED 3/1/2013

Trailer Weekly #58

Tags

Film Festival, trailers

I’m busy busy, so I’ll keep it short and go straight to this week’s selection of trailers.

November Fests: Leeds International Film Festival

Tags

Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru

Tomorrow the annual Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) opens… and I’m finally finishing this post (but better now than never!). LIFF, one of the major events on the calendar of any cinephile living in the north of England, runs until November 18 and offers a diverse selection of films from all over, including some British premieres. There are quite a few Japanese and Korean films as well, most of which however have already had London screenings. While this means that there is probably not all that much reason for those of us in the capital to attend LIFF, anyone living up further north is in for some real treats – plus, I can offer you reviews (or at least a few words of recommendation) for some of the films on the programme.

Trailer Weekly #57

Tags

Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, Kon Satoshi, Miyazaki Hayao, Paris, Studio Ghibli, trailers, Tsumabuki Satoshi

Just in time this time round.

Hope you had a good weekend. It actually snowed in London, but only for 10 minutes and no one – except those of us up at 6 am on Saturday morning – noticed. I even saw three people in shorts at that hour, one being a runner, the other two… lunatics? At least I can’t figure out any other explanation for wearing shorts at 1 degree Celsius!

Anyhow, five trailers today (in order to be timely), all J plus one K.

After the Festival: Awards and Reflections

Tags

BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, London, Tsumabuki Satoshi

The London Film Festival is over and I have to say I’m sort of suffering from film fatigue.  I did enjoy pretty much everything I watched, but I kind of like my time to reflect on each film I see before I delve into the next one and at festivals that’s kind of hard to do – the next screening is always only a few hours away.

What We’ve All Been Waiting for: The London Korean Film Festival

Tags

Birmingham, Bristol, Film Festival, Glasgow, KCCUK, London, trailers

Collage © alualuna.

UPDATED 19/10/2012 – Screening dates added. (Still incomplete – more soon.)

Hangul Celluloid is the one in the know and posted the full programme for the 7th London Korean Film Festival on his website yesterday, with details on film genre, director and runtime all provided. He did leave me the work of digging out all the titles in the original language and script, but, well, here you go!

The festival is scheduled to open on November 1st, with 37 films (shorts included) screening in total in London until November 10th, before moving on to Bristol, Bournemouth and Glasgow on the 11th for nearly another week of K-film galore. In London, films are set to be shown at the Odeon West End, Odeon Panton Street, Odeon Kingston, the KCCUK as well as at the ICA in London, plus the Glasgow Grosvenor cinema, the Odeon Bournemouth cinema and the Bristol Cube with individual dates yet having to be announced – updates will follow here.

Trailer Weekly #55

Tags

Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, London, trailers

So here I am with the Trailer Weekly a day late. It’s such a busy time for me both at university as well as with all my gazillion part-time jobs and now with the London Film Festival added on top, I’m just barely squeezing in a few hours of sleep each night and not really doing much else! Hence the lack of posting.

I have however been jotting down notes on the films I have seen so far -「おおかみこどもの雨と雪」 (Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki/Wolf Children, Japan, 2012),「愛と誠 」(Ai to Makoto/For Love’s Sake, Japan, 2012), 「夢売るふたり」 (Yume Uru Futari/Dreams for Sale, Japan, 2012),  물고기 (Mulgogi/A Fish, South Korea, 2011) and「ライク・サムワン・イン・ラブ」 (Raiku samuwan in rabu/Like Someone in Love, Japan/France, 2012) - with several more still to come. Only Yume Uru Futari didn’t impress me all that much, most others (most of all Ookami Kodomo and Ai to Makoto!) I wish I could rewatch already tomorrow!

By the way, I think all the film posters this week – except the one for the Iranian film – are super boring. Boohoo.

Late Japanese Addition to the London Film Festival

Tags

BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London, Matsumoto Jun, Q&A

I dropped by the BFI today because my festival tickets never did arrive in the post (so not impressed!). While there, I browsed the website a bit and noticed another Japanese film on the programme for the festival (which started today!): 「ジャパン イン ア デイ」　(Japan in a Dei/Japan in a Day, UK/Japan, 2012).