The New York Asian Film Festival (June 29 - July 15) returns - and this year we’re bringing crazy back!   The opening night film is Pang Ho-cheung’s astonishingly filthy, extremely hilarious VULGARIA, a movie about making movies, shot in just 12 days, all about gangsters named Brother Tyrannosaur, sleazy lawyers, the sex film industry, and men who love donkeys a little too much. The Hollywood Reporter calls it a “...laugh-out-loud, aptly titled comedy.” Pang himself, Hong Kong's hotte...

   THE DITCH (Wang Bing, China) The EurAsia Competition, an eclectic mix of European and Asian cinema, is the main competition event at POFF, the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which kicked off last week and continues through Sunday, 5 December. Beginning in 2004, the EurAsia Competition has become one of the unique elements of the Festival, providing a unique spotlight on quality European and Asian films for the Baltics and Scandinavian region. In this year's edition, 22 film...

    FEEF 11: AN EXTRAORDINARY EDITION!!! FOR THE OPENING NIGHT ON FRIDAY 24TH APRIL, A FANTASTIC DOUBLE-BILL OF EUROPEAN PREMIERES: ACTION MOVIE ONG BAK 2 AND THE BRILLIANT BLACK COMEDY CRAZY RACER!! TWO GOALS SCORED BY THAILAND AND CHINA… For Far East Film, number 11 is truly… an extraordinary edition!!! Having already reported on a decade of Asian cinema, up until the year 2008, historicallywitnessing and travelling through the unique richness ...

Join us on April 15th at 5.15pm for the opening panel discussion on recent trends in Taiwanese cinema with the topic... Taiwanese Cinema: A new trend of sustainable success or bubble waiting to burst? Key Issues Addressed:   1) Rise of East Asian film success (notable impact of Mainland China) 2) implication for more regional co-production 3) Cape No 7 and what it's commercial success represents 4) a recent rich trend of films that will dry up in 2009/10? Cost: FREE ENT...

From March 14-21, 2009, the 23d edition of the Fribourg International Film Festival (FIFF) will once again bring the Swiss public new gems from Asia, Latin America and Africa. Today in Solothurn, its artistic direction has revealed the first elements of the program. The international competition will comprise twelve feature films - both documentary and fiction. Six sections, i.e. a grand total of about sixty films, have been announced. Contemporary Indian cinema will feature as a special highlig...

Contemporary Asian films will be showcased in this section to capture the cinematic trends in Asian countries. The Festival is starting a competition of first or second film made by Asian director. Director of the film must have debuted not before 2007. Best Film will be awarded Trophy + cash prize of US$ 2,000. Many aspiring young directors and film school students in Asia are making digital short fiction films. 7th Asian Film Festival is organizing Short Fiction Film Competition. The idea ...

Contemporary Asian films will be showcased in this section to capture the cinematic trends in Asian countries. The Festival is starting a competition of first or second film made by Asian director. Director of the film must have debuted not before 2007. Best Film will be awarded Trophy + cash prize of US$ 2,000. Many aspiring young directors and film school students in Asia are making digital short fiction films. 7th Asian Film Festival is organizing Short Fiction Film Competition. The idea is t...

IT'S A SMALL WORLD (Asian Cinema)BY JUSTINA WALFORD from AFI dailies As a second generation Japanese-American, I spent much of my youth sitting next to my mother and pretending I could understand her Japanese soap operas and melodramatic samurai serials. What my mother and I laugh about to this day is how I "get" Japanese film and TV more than she does. I will guffaw at SMAP's sketch comedy when I don't understand a word and I will cry over an emotional monologue in a tearjerker Tokyo ...

Asian Cinema is completely alien. It is interesting to note that while the Asian Cinema has been winning accolades in the international festival circuit, none of the SAARC countries screen Asian cinema commercially. It is not even much known in film society network of South Asia. Extending from Turkey to Japan, and divided culturally in the Middle East, West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Far East, the Asian Cinema is as diverse and rich as its topography. Yet, the Asian countries share...

Tuesday 5 September, from 3.30 to 5.30 p.m.The European Films in the United States conference is scheduled for Tuesday 5 September, in the Conference Room (2nd floor, Palazzo del Casinò), from 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. Chaired by the initiative’s guardian, Peter Cowie, journalists Molly Haskell (New York Observer), Jonathan Rosenbaum (The Chicago Reader), Richard Corliss (Time Magazine), Nick Vivarelli (Variety), having first sketched out a brief history of European films in the United States, will d...

Central Asian Film Festival at the Pacific Film ArchiveThe notion of 'new wave' is probably one of the most meaningless concepts used in film criticism. Since the French nouvelle vague of the sixties, each time a nation produces two or three talented directors, the critics start to talk about a new wave. If this term had existed in the twenties, German expressionism and French impressionism would surely have been described as such. In the last four decades, however, there are few new waves that ...

NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL----ASIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN INFLUENCESAs the New York Film Festival enters its final week, it continues its marathon of remarkable films from around the world. The Festival’s strong affinity for European and American Independent cinema has already been discussed, but among its most astonishing discoveries are new films from a variety of Asian and Latin American filmmakers.The new Asian Cinema continues to produce wondrous new talents, and this year’s Festival is highli...

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2004June 18 - 27, 2004at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue @ Second Street)For the third year in a row, Subway Cinema presents its festival (one of only three in the US) devoted to new feature films from Asia. After watching 211 films, we feel we can safely say that this year¹s line-up includes the hands-down, no-holds-barred best new films from across the region. These are the movies that have been sweeping the awards ceremonies, racking up the box offi...

Strong presence of China and the Near East at 10th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemafrom 10th to 17th February 2004From 10th to 17th February 2004, faithful to its vocation, the 10th edition of Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema will once more reflect the Asian vast continent’s cultural pluralism, through films coming from the entire geographical Asia. Celebrating the Year of China in France, almost one third of the 67 films selected this year is dedicated to C...

According to Screen International Toronto's Piers Handling will be stepping aside from programming duties while remaining CE. He is reported to be taking applications for co-director job probably looking at the Cannes duo winning strategy.In a recent interview he gave to Filmfestivals he was speaking of his programing directions.What kind of films screen at Toronto?I think Toronto has always been opened to every variety of film. Of course, popcorn movies don't always belong in a festival, but th...