Director of Lust, Caution and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee, is to head the jury this year’s Venice Film Festival, organisers have said. The festival takes place from 2 to 12 September.
Asia House, the UK’s leading pan-Asian cultural organisation, presents a compelling selection of the best new cinema from
across Asia. From the latest work by Oscar-nominated director Zhang Yimou (House of the Flying Daggers, Hero), Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, to films by award-winning film-makers and emerging talent from China, Japan, Taiwan, Iran, Bhutan and the Philippines.
Other screenings include Miki Satoshi’s follow-up to Adrift in Tokyo, Instant Swamp starring Kumiko Aso, Yu-Chieh Cheng’s Yang Yang and Filipino screen writer and documentary maker Ralston Jover’s Bakal Boys. The festival runs from 27 November to 11 December.
The full line up is as follows:
Dir. Zhang Yimou, 12A, 107mins
Friday 27 November, 7.30pm
Academy Award nominated Chinese Director Zhang Yimou casts veteran Japanese star Takakura Ken in this majestic road movie following a father’s quest for reconciliation with his dying son. Gou-ichi Takata (Takakura Ken) journeys across epic landscapes to the heart of China in search of Li Jaimin, the singer whose voice may reconcile father and son.
Dir. Ralston Jover, Cert. TBC, 125 mins
Thursday 3 December, 7.30pm
In his feature debut, acclaimed Filipino screen writer and documentary maker Ralston Jover uses a gritty yet poetic verité approach in this drama about the boys who dive for scrap metal in the harbour slums of Manila. Followed by post screening discussion with critic Tony Rayns.
Future Shorts Asian Selection
Friday 4 December, 7.30pm
Future Shorts, the world’s leading short film label, presents a selection of award-winning films from Japan, Singapore and Thailand including a work by celebrated music video maker Nagi Noda and humorous masterpieces by Royston Tan and Kosai Sekine. Followed by Q&A with Future Shorts.
Dir. Miki Satoshi, 15, 120mins
Saturday 5 December, 8pm
Miki Satoshi’s follow-up to film festival hit the road movie ‘Adrift in Tokyo’ stars the beautiful Kumiko Aso as Haname. Instant
Swamp is also about a journey – but more one of self discovery. Haname, editor at a trendy fashion magazine on the brink of
bankruptcy, disposes of her possessions and travels across Japan to discover an antiques dealer (Morio Kazama) who may or may not be her lost father. Miki’s unique brand of dry, quirky and surreal comedy is still much in evidence as is his affection for Japan’s odder corners and personalities.
Courtesy of Third Window Films
Dir. Naghi Nemati, Cert TBC, 80mins
Wednesday 9 December, 8pm
This beautiful atmospheric debut feature by award-winning Iranian short film maker Naghi Nemati tracks three conscripts who desert their unit and become lost in the frozen wilderness of Iran’s mountainous north. As their lives unravel in the barren snowscapes the film shifts language, becoming an intense and surreal meditation on human existence.
Dir. Neten Chokling, 12A, 90 mins
Thursday 10 December, 8pm
This new feature by Bhutanese director Neten Chokling follows the life of the legendary 11th century Tibetan Bhuddist mystic and saint Jetsun Milarepa. With sumptuous cinematography, the film is an ancient tale of magic, murder and redemption, played out across
spectacular Himalayan landscapes.
Dir. Yu-Chieh Cheng, Cert. TBC, 111mins
Friday 11 December, 7.30pm
The latest feature by award-winning director Yu-Chieh Cheng, mentored by Ang Lee and now emerging as Taiwan’s brightest new talent. Beautiful half-French, half-Taiwanese athlete Yang Yang (Sandrine Pinna – Best Actress Taipei Film Festival) pursues love and intimacy but is conflicted by Taiwan’s fetish for Western beauty in a search for her own identity.
All screenings take place at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly Circus, except Future Shorts
This year at Cannes sees the real heavy hitters come out to play, as the world’s greatest auteur directors gather to compete for the coverted Palme d’Or. As well as the latest films from Pedro Almodóvar, Ken Loach, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Campion, Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke, and Terry Gilliam, there’s a strong Asian presence. Highlights include Park Chan-wook’s new vampire flick Thirst; Lou Ye’s Tiananmen Square-themed Summer Palace, which has incensed authorities to the point of them slapping a five-year ban on him; Tsai Ming-Liang’s film within a film Face; Johnnie To’s Vengeance; and Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. Other films screening include Kore-eda Hirokaz’s Air Doll; the latest from The Host and Memories Of Murder director Bong Joon-Ho, Mother; and Petiton by Zhao Liang.
See the Guardian’s gallery guide to directors vying for the Palme d’Or »
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Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Tang Wei, is released by Universal Pictures in the UK on 28 March 2008. You can read our review, along with an insightful Q & A session, here.
