Forthcoming Festivals ... Asano Tadanobu Retrospective

[Stephen Cremin]

23rd Hong Kong International Film Festival
31 March - 15 April 1999

With the overwhelming success of the Pusan International Film Festival 
which only launched in 1996, its Tokyo counterpart is at least putting 
up a feeble fight, but the 23rd HKIFF has relegated itself as purely an 
event for local audiences.  For example, Korean cinema is represented by 
the Holy Trinity of "Spring in My Hometown", "Christmas in August" and 
"The Power of Kangwon Province", a threesome who first met in Cannes 
1998 and have been joined-at-the-hip ever since, parading themselves at 
every unimaginative festival around the world.  The great shame is that 
Hong Kong programmers actually do their research, best exemplified by 
the superb in-depth retrospective they host every year - this year 
devoted to New Wave Hong Kong cinema - an area where Pusan doesn't even 
come close.  There are also small retrospectives to Japanese directors 
Haneda Sumiko and Kurosawa Kiyoshi.  While Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong 
Kong films are well-represented, other East and South-East Asian 
national cinemas barely get a look in.

Tel: +852 2734 2892
Fax: +852 2366 5206
Web: www.hkiff.com.hk



UdineIncontri XIII: Far East Film
10-18 April 1999

The most exciting event for Asian film in the next few months isn't the 
Hong Kong International Film Festival, but a little closer to home in 
Italy.  Now in its 13th year, Udine had such a success with last year's 
Hong Kong retrospective that they've repositioned the festival as an 
exclusively Asian event, with a bias towards the more commercial cinema 
which rarely travels overseas.  Udine also has a strong programme of 
retrospectives, this year screening four rare Maxu Weibang films from 
the 30-40s, eight early John Woo action-comedies, a roundup of last 
year's Korean movies and the first international look at the new 
Singaporean cinema.  With over fifty films screened free to the public 
in a 1200-seat theatre, Udine has overnight become one of the key 
festivals for Asian film anywhere in the world.  Next year, Japanese 
cinema joins the party.

Tel: +390 432 522 717
Fax: +390 432 601 421
Web: www.udineincontri.it



2nd London Pan-Asian Film Festival: Launch Event
3-10 June 1999

This year's London Pan-Asian Film Festival will move back to the 
second-half of August with a particularly large programme of Korean 
cinema.  However, there will be a one-week launch event in early June to 
bring in the media and sponsors, the centre of which is a retrospective 
to actor Asano Tadanobu.  Asano will attend the opening screening of 
Ishii Katsuhito's "Shark Skin Man & Peach Hip Girl" and will introduce 
further examples of his work during the opening weekend.

If any KineJapan members will be in London at that time and would like 
tickets to the opening screening, please contact me by email.  And if 
any of you have comments on Asano and his films, I'd be very interested 
in hearing them.  There are 17-pages devoted to him in the March 
(No.1278) issue of "Kinema Junpo" which must be some kind of record for 
a living actor.  And, finally, if any other festival directors would 
care to share (English) subtitling costs, please get in touch quickly.

Tel: +44 7970 506 326
Fax: +44 171 493 4935
E-M: asianfilmlibrary at hotmail.com



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