************************************************************
The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin (HKETO Berlin) is continuing to support the Hong Kong film industry by once again sponsoring the Five Flavours Film Festival in Warsaw. The festival, which is the only Polish film festival devoted to East and Southeast Asian cinema, is running from November 12 to 20.
The ninth edition of the festival this year features eight movies and five Fresh Wave short films from Hong Kong. "Retrospective: John Woo" consists of six gangster cinema masterpieces completed between 1986 and 1992. Produced in head-spinning quantities, action films were the beating heart of Hong Kong's 1980s cinema. Woo's films perfectly balance Eastern and Western cinematic traditions to inspire directors all over the world.
Under the "Special Screenings" section, the Five Flavours Film Festival is showing the spectacular movie musical "Office", about high-level corporate intrigue. The film, produced and directed by Johnnie To and starring Chow Yun-fat and Sylvia Chang, is an adaptation of the 2008 play "Design for Living" by Chang. The "New Asian Cinema" section features Jody Luk's directorial debut in the coming-of-age drama "Lazy Hazy Crazy". This movie received two awards in the 2015 edition of the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, the leading film project market in Asia and supported by Create Hong Kong and the Film Development Fund of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government.
Apart from showcasing Hong Kong productions to the Polish audience, the Five Flavours Film Festival also promotes exchanges among film professionals from different places. This year, HKETO Berlin has supported a total of six young directors and cinematographers of Fresh Wave short films from Hong Kong to attend the festival, namely Wong Tin-shing ("The Drifter"), Edith Chong and Lim Yee-teng ('Someday We'll Know"), Yip Man-hay and Charlie Choi ("Food Fascist") and Sam Chan ("Vampire's Love"). The Fresh Wave project has been organised since 2005 under the patronage of Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. When meeting with the young directors and cinematographers in Warsaw, the Director of HKETO Berlin, Ms Betty Ho, encouraged them to continue to pursue their passion in movie production and contribute to the development of Hong Kong's creative industry. She added that HKETO Berlin will continue to explore collaboration opportunities with film festivals in Europe with a view to widening the exposure of Hong Kong movies and practitioners in the industry.
Apart from continuing its co-operation with the Five Flavours Festival for the third consecutive year, HKETO Berlin has started partnerships with three top European festivals in 2015. In late October and early November, the Vienna International Film Festival presented two Hong Kong productions, among them "The Golden Era", directed by Ann Hui. Before that, the Munich International Film Festival celebrated the German premiere of Hui's epic drama in June. And the Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland featured four Hong Kong productions in its newly established section "Hong Kong Window" in late September and early October.
About Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin
HKETO Berlin is the official HKSAR Government representative in commercial relations and other economic and trade matters in Poland, Austria, Germany and Switzerland as well as the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.
Ends/Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:34
NNNN
