The programme was released two days ago and you can get your own copy in the following venues: ICA, Ciné Lumiere, Riverside Studios, Genesis Cinema and Asia House, plus all around London in the following days.
This festival is a great opportunity to become more familiar with different kinds of films and filmmakers covering a huge geographical area, less known by Western audiences.
The programme is vary and it includes Q&As (highlights of the festival), so have look and get your tickets (you can purchase them at the different venues).
For detailed information visit: www.asiahouse.org
For detailed information visit: www.asiahouse.org
I'll be volunteering throughout the whole festival and if I have the chance to see some of the screenings I will certainly review the films and the experience in general!
Opening Night Gala - 26 Feb - 20.40 - ICA
Unforgiven - dir. Lee Sang-il, 2013, Japan, 135 mins
UK Premiere + Q&A
Award winning director Lee Sang-il (Hula Girls) mounts a handsome, powerful remake of Clint Eastwood's iconic revenge Western. Set in post-Meiji restoration Hokkaido, it stars Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima) as Jubei Kamata, an ageing warrior who has left his crimes under the former Edo shogunate behind him. But poverty, and possibly a chance for redemption, allows a friend to persuade him to come out of retirement. Lavishly recreating its 1880s setting, which includes replacing guns with samurai swords, Lee effortlessly transposes the original film's themes of vengeance, loyalty and regret to its new setting. Unforgiven has been a major hit at festivals the world over, and the Pan-Asia Film Festival is delighted to be hosting the film's UK Premiere as its 2014 Opening Night Gala.
1 Mar - 18.00 - ICA
36 dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, 2012, Thailand, 68 mins
London Premiere
On the site of a derelict building, location scout Sai meets art director Oom, and they begin working together. Sai records everything on her digital camera, from images of locations to the people in her life. Two years later, Sai is still in the same job, while Oom has moved on. One day her computer crashes, wiping her hard drive, along with the images that capture an entire year of her life. Among them are those she'd taken of Oom, and an intense period of reflection and memory begins. Consisting of 36 shots, 36 won the main prize at the Busan International Film Festival in 2012, and is a delicate contemplation on the nature of memories in the digital age.
1 Mar - 18.30 - CINÉ LUMIÈRE
Dangerous Liaisons - dir. Jin-ho Hur, 2012, China, 106 mins
Gala Screening - UK Premiere
An alluring, stylish adaptation of the 18th century French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos starring Chinese superstar Zhang Ziyi (House of Flying Daggers, Memoirs of a Geisha), Cecilia Cheung, and Jang Dong-Gun. Made widely famous by Stephen Frears' 1988 film adaptation starring Glenn Close, here director Jin-ho Hur translates the novel's story of mind games and sexual intrigue to the glamorous high society of 1930s Shanghai, and creates a taught, powerful drama with phenomenal central performances, and lushly realized production design.
2 Mar - 16.00 - Riverside Studios
The Shape of the Night - dir. Nakamura Noboru, 1964, Japan, 106 mins
UK Premiere
Restored to mark the centenary of Nakamura Noboru's birth, The Shape of the Night is set to re-establish itself as a classic of Japanese cinema. A director famous for his lavish visual style - his Twin Sisters of Kyoto was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1963 - Nakamura Noburo's film sees Yoshie Nogami (an amazing Kuwano Miyuki) work as a factory worker by day, while moonlighting as a bar hostess at night. Seduced by regular Eiji Kitami, she begins a passionate love affair, until Eiji's demeanor changes and she is slowly forced into a life of prostitution. Living a life of despair, she eventually meets building engineer Fujii, who urges her to go straight and run away with him. But this swooning, tragic drama has other plans in store for her. A genuine rediscovery, The Shape of the Night is one of Japan's great female-centered melodramas, to rank alongside those of Ozu, Imamura and Naruse.
2 Mar - 16.30 - Ciné Lumière
Kami's Party - dir. Ali Ahmadzadeh, 2013, Iran, 80 mins
UK Premiere
Negin is spending a few days on holiday with her boyfriend Omid and her sister Nazan in a villa on the banks of the Caspian Sea. Not having had news of Omid for several hours, Negin decides to go with her friend Farnaz to a party being held by Kami, a mutual friend. The two young women drive off to Lavassan, a small district on the outskirts of Tehran, where the party is taking place. But Negin doesn't realize that a surprise awaits her in the trunk of the car. Portraying the life and relationships of the wealthy young adults of Iran, Kami's Party is a road-movie that takes viewers into the well-kept, secret worlds of the country's upper-classes. An important new film showing a side to the country not many in the West will have seen, and an important debut feature from a bright new voice.
2 Mar - 18.00 - ICA
Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy - dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, 2013, Thailand, 120 mins
UK Premiere
Mary is a senior in high school. With graduation a few months away, she is faced with crises in life, love, and friendship. Meanwhile, strange, random things keep happening to her. Portraying a character struggling to make sense of her life as it threatens to spin out of control, Nawapol's wickedly inventive second film creates an inventive narrative of an uncontrollable life through a brilliantly modern artistic concept: to adapt a Twitter stream into a fictional film. The director used 410 real Tweets from an anonymous girl as a springboard to create a fantasy world of a contemporary Asian teenager, and the results are funny and strange, a conflation of modern Thai teenage life, Wes Anderson-esque humour, and the possibilities for escape offered by the digital world.
5 Mar - 18.30 - Asia House
The Missing Picture - dir. Rithy Panh, 2013, Cambodia, 90 mins
Inc. Panel Discussion
The winner of Un Certain Regard section of Cannes in 2013, this stunning documentary uses a variety of visual mediums to explore the topic of genocide and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Detailing award-winning director Rithy Panh's attempts to recover and recreate a lost image from the period of Cambodia's recent tragic history, its use of claymation and archive footage offers a moving contemplation of memory and healing. The perfect film for an in-depth discussion hosted at Asia House as part of the Pan-Asia Film Festival, this film addresses one of the most sensitive subjects of recent Asian history in film, and like the recent The Act of Killing, offers a window for deeper understanding of these events.
7 Mar - 19.00 - ICA
The Tale of Iya - dir. Tesuichiro Tsuta, 2013, Japan, 169 mins
UK PREMIERE + Q&A
A beautiful, sweeping drama evoking the relationship between man and nature, set in Japan's last untouched region. A tunnel to be built in Iya threatens to disrupt the natural order as an elderly man (Min Tanaka) and his granddaughter Haruna (Rina Takeda) meet a young man from Tokyo (Shima Onishi), whose life will be changed forever in experiencing their simple, secluded lifestyle. Ambitious, beautiful and moving, Tetsuichiro Tsuta's sophomore feature depicts the nobility of co-existing with nature. Shot on 35mm in the mountains of Tokushima, it captures the changing seasons over the course of a year, creating a dreamlike visual poem that offers viewers a truly cinematic experience. Awarded a Special Mention in the Asian Future section of the Tokyo International Film Festival.
8 Mar - 17.00 - Genesis Cinema
Honour - dir. Shan Khan, 2013, UK, 96 mins
LONDON PREMIERE + PANEL DISCUSSION
An urban thriller set in West London starring Paddy Considine and rising star Aiysha Hart, Honour is one of the most powerful British films of the year. Mona is a young British Muslim girl on the run from her family after they uncover her plans to run away with her Punjabi boyfriend. In a desperate bid to save face and their family honor, her mother and older brother enlist the help of a bounty hunter to track her down. A sensitive, interesting take on debates within British-Asian communities, with a fantastic cast.
Closing Night Gala - 9 Mar - 18.00 - ICA
A Prayer for Rain - dir. Ravi Kumar, India/UK, 2013, 103 mins
UK PREMIERE + Q&A
A drama tackling one of the last half-century's great corporate and environmental scandals, A Prayer for Rain tells the powerful and moving story of the Bhopal tragedy. Featuring both a high profile Indian cast including Fagun Thakrar and Tannishtha Chatterjee, as well as American stars Martin Sheen, Kal Penn, and Mischa Barton, Ravi Kumar's debut is both a labour of love and a timely call for action, arriving on the 30th anniversary of the 1984 Union Carbide plant malfunction, the consequences of which are tragically ongoing. Dramatising the dependence of the local community on the chemical plant that will eventually cause catastrophe, and the series of oversights that led to an event that stands as a benchmark for corporate irresponsibility in the developing world, this is vital and important film with which to close this years festival.
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