HONG KONG – Fifteen additional films will join the Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) which will be held alongside the Film Mart Rights Market next month. They join the 28 development projects already announced.
The 21st edition of HAF runs March 13-15 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center and will be the first physical, in-person edition of the project event since 2019. First day pitching session.
Work in progress The selection leans heavily towards Chinese-language titles, with three from Hong Kong and the majority from mainland China.
Leading names attached to select work-in-progress titles include producers Stanley Kwan (“Center Stage”), Mai McSavan (“Manta Ray”) and Ramakrishna Pokharal (“The Red Falls”). Emerging and established actors including Fish Liu, Austin Lin, Ma Chi Hsiang, Matsuda Ryuhei, Wang Xiaobing, Wu Kang-Ren, and Zhou Feng grace the various projects.
Kwan is attached as a producer to Sasha Chuck’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which tracks the struggles of two sisters who move from Hunan to Hong Kong in the 1990s. It has a cast led by Woo Kang Ren, Angela Yuen and Cho Pak Him.
Maksavan is on board as a producer for Pathi Paran Bontarig’s “Solds by the Seashore,” which follows a young Muslim woman who becomes a female activist-turned-visual artist in southern Thailand.
Wang Xiaobing (“Pluto Moment”) stars as an actor who enlists the help of a friend with supernatural powers to revive his career in “Actor.” The film is produced by Zhou Yao and directed by Ma Xiang.
There are two non-Chinese-language projects: “Grass” by Sauro Roy, whose “Namtoh” invitation won the Grand Jury Prize at the Mumbai Film Festival. It follows a nine-year-old Nepali girl’s mystical journey in search of her lost dog; follows. Pokharal, a Sports Emmy Award winner, is the producer of “Who Were We?” from Tomina Tetsuya (“Blue Wind Blues”). The film explores the inexplicable love between a man and a woman who I Can’t Remember the Past. The film stars Matsuda (“Before We Disappear”) and Komatsu Nana (“Moonlight Shadow”).
HAF has seen several of its past projects receive high-profile attention recently. Liu Jian’s “Art College 1994” (from HAF 2018) has been selected for the main competition at the upcoming Berlin fair. Absence (HAF 2022), another Chinese film by Wu Leng, will play in Berlin’s Encounter section. Burak Cevik’s “Forms of Forgetting” (HAF 2021) will have its world premiere in Berlin’s Forum section. And Yang Heng’s “Silent Ghosts” (HAF 2022) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last month.
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