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The Hong Kong Film Panorama, organised at the initiative of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Brussels, has started its 2009-2010 European tour in Antwerp, Belgium, where it will be showing until the end of May. Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid and Barcelona will follow.
Presenting some of the latest Hong Kong productions, selected with the help of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, the panorama has become a popular annual event on the calendar of film enthusiasts in some of Europe's capitals and main cities. This is the seventh successive year that the panorama has been hosted by the Antwerp Film Museum.
Included in this year's programme are Johnnie To's Sparrow, two crime thrillers (Law Wing-cheong's Tactical Unit - Comrades in Arms and Derek Kwok's The Moss), Heiward Mak's coming-of-age drama High Noon, Lawrence Lau's surprising City Without Baseball and two non-fiction films, Herman Yau's True Women For Sale and Angie Chen's This Darling Life. All the films were made in 2008 or 2009.
There will also be a tribute to iconic director Tsui Hark, with his films Once Upon a Time in China (parts I, II and III), The Legend of Zu and Shanghai Blues.
Special Representative for Hong Kong Economic and Trade Affairs to the European Communities, Miss Mary Chow, told around 200 guests at the opening reception today (May 6, Antwerp time) that the Government had been promoting creative industries, including the film industry, in Hong Kong by creating an environment that was conducive to the arts.
"In this regard, we have embarked on an ambitious project to develop artistic and cultural life in our city. We will convert a 40-hectare harbourfront site into a cultural district. The West Kowloon Cultural District, as it will be called, will boast 15 new performing arts venues of different types, including a concert hall, theatres and a museum for 20th and 21st century art.
"The future waterfront cultural district will provide a platform to show the world the best in Chinese culture and to bring the best cultural and arts programmes and exhibitions from all over the world to Hong Kong. The first phase of this new development will come on stream in 2015."
Miss Chow said the film industry in Hong Kong had built a reputation for creativity comparable to the best in the world. She noted that the film 'Vengeance', by one of Hong Kong's most successful directors, Johnnie To, had been selected to compete for the Golden Palm at the Cannes International Film Festival later this month.
"The Hong Kong SAR Government wants to help all the other budding Johnnie Tos in our film industry. In recent years, it has sought to nurture new talent by helping to finance small to medium-budget films. With this in mind, the Government has injected about HK$300 million into the Film Development Fund."
Ends/Thursday, May 7, 2009
Issued at HKT 19:23
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