By Menene Gras Balaguer, director of the Asian Film Festival of Barcelona.
The author takes stock of the “Far East Film Festival 2024“, the most important Asian film festival in Europe, which has closed its 26th edition with success in titles and audiences
The most important Asian film festival in Europe closes its 26th edition with a public success that far exceeds expectations in a program in which great titles have been brought together, with ten world premieres, 23 European previews and 19 Italian ones. The numbers for its director, Sabrina Barachetti, say it all, not only with regard to the data related to the number of spectators who have attended all the sessions but also to the activities that have been developed in parallel, with the conversations, panels , meetings, master classes and everything related to the FOCUS ASIA project and the Campus. The latter, an educational project that recruits young journalists, five Europeans and five Asians over 18 and under 26, who learn to write about cinema and get to know a film festival behind the scenes, carrying out a program related to their training. Access to such a broad and specific programming as well as to directors, scriptwriters, producers, actors and actresses, or to critics and theorists who come from all over to this festival becomes for its candidates an opportunity that can decide their career. Twenty-six editions, continuing to experience permanent growth, and whose archive is worth exploring to verify the magnitude of their proposals and the progressive development of their respective contributions for distribution in Europe. Respectively, FOCUS ASIA, a platform created in 2015, conceived as a platform to encourage co-production and post-production of projects between Asia and Europe, and connect markets from both continents, has continued to be in the news both for the achievements achieved in the signing of agreements in the industry, such as the one signed between Italy and Japan for co-production, as well as the visit of the official delegation of producers, distributors and filmmakers from Indonesia who in this edition have had a promising presence, taking into account the development that this cinema is having in this country .
The balance of the festival relates the number of titles screened, the number by country, those that compete in the different sections and those that are part of the tributes to directors with a recognized career along with the restored titles, as a recovery of their main respective contributions. The history of cinema is built daily with new productions that dissect the current world or that imagine a world or a future in anticipation of what will come or may happen. But, in any case, the background is essential to evaluate what has been done and to constantly innovate to go further than those who precede us. The FEFF takes into account the innumerable aspects and factors that intervene when presenting what is being done in cinema, expanding a cartography that is limited to what we continue to call the Far East. A wide geography that this year has covered the film production of nine countries, in competition, and that of another three out of competition. Among the first are those with the largest film industry on an uneven map and with great differences between some of its members.
Beyond the genres represented, the number of productions per country is important, but even more so is the excellence of some titles that have been introduced into the programming. As for those grouped in the competing sections, China has had eight titles; Hong Kong, nine; Japan, ten; Indonesia, three; Malaysia, one; Philippines, three, South Korea, eleven; Taiwan, four; and Thailand, one. Numbers, as has been said before, always count, and in this particular case they make evident the predominance of some countries whose production not only reaches relevant figures but also other particularities that are attributed to how some stories are told. Vietnam and Cambodia, to cite an example, are not counted this time among the countries with films competing in any of the sections, but nevertheless Indonesia also regains positions in the section dedicated to Retrospectives and Hong Kong wins with the nine titles produced between 2023 and 2024. On the other hand, Korea promotes itself with titles that resonate and long-standing strong cinematography, which rivals the production of its most powerful neighbors, China and Japan, which remain at the same level with some interesting news, where changes are perceived in how stories are told and what stories are told.
The daily immersion in Asian cinema has been total from April 24 to May XNUMX, thanks to a film program that is being made in this region of the world, both at the Teatro Nuovo with seating for more than a thousand spectators and in the Visionary. The followers of this festival seem to show a great interest in Asian cinema and a knowledge of its main authors and directors. In general, all the sessions have a loyal audience, national and international, who attends this event annually with the intention not only of learning about the new productions that are projected as world or European premieres, but also of attending the different meetings that They take place in panels, conversations and tributes, in which a broad and forceful vision of the cinema that is made and its antecedents is offered. During the nine days in which this event takes place, the city becomes an unrivaled platform for Asian cinema from the Far East and an opportunity for young and not so young directors who can thus contact distributors, markets and audiences. The festival welcomes directors, actors and actresses, press from all over the world, and agents from a market that is increasingly present in Europe. It seems clear that Asian cinema has not only gained a market in Asia and outside Asia, but that its contributions are increasingly radical in terms of new paradigms related to the ways of narrating and the stories that are told.
There have been fifty titles in competition selected from the most recent productions made between 2023 and 2024, to which are added, out of competition, the restored classics and not so classics (Celebrating 50 years of Korean Film) and those that are part of the tributes (Zhang Yimou, Lee Hsing, Myung-se, Somai Shinji and Suo Masayuki), until reaching 79 unique projections, there being no possibility of their repetition due to lack of time and due to the numerous theoretical and practical activities that coexist in this festival model. The recovery of some titles by the aforementioned filmmakers together with the programming of titles in competition is a common practice at the FEFF, which helps to take into account the link between the cinema made today and its antecedents. It is also worth noting in this sense that Indonesian cinema has been the object of attention for programmers, who have tried to draw attention to some titles representative of the changes in trends in a cinema that aspires to join the international market and stimulate a growing industry. which has seen the number of spectators increase locally in the last three years.
“The trends that are visible in the most recent productions, from this year and the previous one, are not exactly analogous nor is it perhaps possible to establish one or several lines in which narrative models converge beyond the one that exists between titles of a same gender.”
It is inevitable to point out personal preferences among those titles that identify with the dramatic genre and that respond to the festival's quote, New Narrators, New Narratives, bringing together its protagonists. Below, I name the titles that I consider most relevant due to their acceptance, such as CITIZEN OF A KIND (2024), Mulberry Award for Best Screenplay, by the Korean filmmaker Park Young-ju, who has just turned 30 years old and is her second feature film, after Second Life (2018); YOLO, You only live once (2024), by Chinese director Jin Ling; TROUBLE GIRL (2023), by Taiwanese filmmaker Chin Chia-hua; CONFETTI (2024), first feature film by Japanese director Naoya Fujita, second Mulberry Audience Award; TIME STILL TURNS THE PAGES (2023), third Mulberry Audience Award, by Hong Kong director Nick Cheik, previously awarded best director at the Asian Film Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards; RANSOMED (2023) by Korean director Kim Seong -hun; TRENDING TOPIC (2023), by Chinese director Xin Yukun; and A NORMAL FAMILY (2023), by Korean director Hur Jin-ho. They are not the only films that are worth mentioning, but they are the ones that I consider most in line with my preferences in terms of the narratives from which they derive and the compositional aesthetics. They are films with good scripts and a strong structure. What they narrate brings us closer to their protagonists and derives the physical and cultural borders that separate us. Each one in their own way and for a different reason, but we are equally affected by the dramas of private life and those that have to do with the history of a country, as is the case narrated in 12.12 THE DAY (2023), from Korean director Kim Sumg-son. The account of events as transcendent as the coup d'état of December 12, 1979 by a military group under the command of General Chun Doo-hwan, after the assassination on October 26 of President Park Chung-hee, which put an end to the dictatorship Yussin (1972-1979) is masterful in the way he approaches how a dictatorship is created.
History of a country and history of all, which we are invited to explore to see how a military coup can take place and the immediate consequences of an action such as the one carried out by establishing a system of totalitarian power with the dictatorship that succeeded the insurrection of a part of the South Korean army. The events have been the subject over the years of several cinematographic stories such as National Security (2012) by Chin Ji-young, about the arrest in 1985 of Kim Geung-tee, who was tortured for 22 days in a row, forcing him to confess to crimes that had not committed. Or also A Taxi Driver (2017) by Jang Hon, a film that narrates the massacre of hundreds of citizens in Gwangju, on the occasion of the popular uprising of May 1980 against the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan. The only two witnesses to the events were a German correspondent in Tokyo and a taxi driver, whom the first hired to take him to the scene and then report on what was happening. 12.12 DAY in turn masterfully resurrects the chaos that the South Korean army takes advantage of to carry out the coup d'état that ends the aspirations of another part of the army and civil society, in favor of political change and the arrival of democracy in the country . The vindication of history to avoid conflicts that are repeated over and over again is one of the keys to this film and those that are mentioned for providing analogous testimony.
Among the titles mentioned first, the similarities are few with respect to the contents narrated, but each one in its own way affects us very personally due to the topics they deal with. Citizen of a Kind, because the protagonist is the object of a scam, in which she loses all her savings, something very common in today's world, and we are shown the group and type of organization that are behind crimes that are normally carried out with impunity. Time still turns The Pages, because it shows the harassment of an authoritarian father and the life of a wife who is the victim of abuse by her father for two brothers, one of whom ends up believing that his life has no way out and that the best thing is to commit suicide. Trouble Girl, in turn, presents another psychological drama, about a teenager, victim of the divorce of her parents and a family conflict to which she decides not to give up. Trending Topic, for showing to what extent social networks can reveal facts that no other media can reveal, and to what extent they can also become instruments of pressure for misinformation and deception of their recipients or public opinion. in general through accusation and concealment of the truth. A Normal Family is anything but a normal family, in which its protagonists, children of two brothers, a lawyer and a doctor, end up committing a crime without thinking about it, but whose irresponsibility affects the respective parents, to the point that the conflict After a double turn of events, it ends in the tragic outcome that no one expects.
We cannot fail to mention other powerful titles such as DUST TO DUST (2023), by Hong Kong native Jonathan Li, 13 BOMBS (2023), by Indonesian Amgga Dwman Sasongko; VOICE (2024) by Japanese director Mishima Yukiko; THE LYRICIST WANNABE (2023) from Hong Kong director Norris Wong; GOLDFINGER (2023) by director Felix Chong, also from Hong Kong, or MOTION PICTURE CHOICE (2023), by Japanese director Nagao Gem. The latter, a film that recovers silent cinema and experiments with the moving image, renouncing the use of words and giving actors and actresses the power of gestures and parodic expression to communicate what they want to convey. An interesting and unique exercise, which tests actors and spectators alike. Obviously, it is not a question of making a complete inventory of the titles that have been screened here, nor of naming all those who have come to present their films at this festival, but those that are mentioned are part of the preferences of whoever can be said to that a significant majority have done so with part of their respective teams. Access to the real protagonists behind the films that are screened requires an effort that only the most established festivals can afford. Udine is an unavoidable annual event for Asian cinema, as it is for its authors, its agents, the press, but above all also for the industry in general. Conversations, panels, presentations and meetings also contribute to making it unique in its kind, making accessible this backstage where cinema moves and agreements for production and distribution are hatched.
Zhang Yimou , twice Palme d'Or at the Cannes Festival, Golden Bear at the Berlinale and three Oscar nominations, he closed this edition with a master class, and the screening of three of his films representative of the beginnings of a career that place him in the head of the Fifth generation of Chinese cinema and of his presence in current cinema, where he has not ceased to make his influence felt in the generations after him. These titles are RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991), TO LIVE (1994) and UNDER THE LIGHT (2023), his last film and international premiere in Udine. The tribute to Zhang Yimou for the founders and directors of the FEFF, Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche, was a debt owed to a filmmaker who was a true revelation for the West and for Chinese cinema, drawing our attention not only to a generation of filmmakers but about an industry that was waking up from its lethargy. The Golden Mulberry Lifetime Achievement Award that has been granted to him is more than a simple tribute, it is the recognition of a career that transcends individual stories to be part of the universal history in which we can all see ourselves represented in one way or another.
