Terracotta Far East Asian Film Festival Press Event
Film festival
From Friday 23 May – Sunday 1 June
Review by Mike Sullivan
This is the fifth year of the Terracotta Far East Film Festival and it gets bigger and better each time. This year’s press event allowed us to get a preview of the line up of movies as well as see their trailers. It was also a great opportunity to chat to other fellow Asian movie lovers and the organisers of the event. The festival will be taking place at the Prince Charles Cinema and The Institute of Contemporary Art and this year there will be three distinct strands; SPOTLIGHT ON: Philippines, Current Asian Cinema and Terra Cotta Horror All-Nighter.
As part of the focus on the Philippines there will be six movies shown from that country, while for Japanese movie enthusiasts there is a choice of four Japanese movies, plus one other movie which was made in Taiwan but directed by Aozaru Shiao and Toyoharu Kitamura.
Be My Baby made it to the Official Selection of both the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2014 and the Udine Far East Film Festival 2014. It was directed by Hitoshi One and the screenplay was written by award-winning dramatist Daisuke Miura. Amazingly it was made in just four days with a budget of under $10,000; the plot follows a group of young people and the events following a party with dimly lit rooms. There are lies, lust, betrayal and manipulation. This film will be shown at the Prince Charles Cinema on 30 May.
The Snow White Murder Case is the latest movie by a personal favourite of mine, director Yoshihiro Nakamura. His impressive filmography includes Fish Story and See you tomorrow, everyone, and it is fair to say that his latest movie isn’t one to be missed. In a similar style of storytelling to Fish Story this movie features a multi-perspective plot following a murder and an unofficial investigation by a director and twitter addict Akahoshi (Go Ayano). This will have its UK premiere on 31 May at the Prince Charles Cinema.
Judge! is a 2014 movie directed by Akira Nagai and featuring Satoshi Tsumabuki and Keiko Kitagawa. Ad agency employee Kiichiro Ota (Tsumabuki) is sent by his boss to be on the judging panel at the Santa Monica Advertising Festival and he brings his colleague (Kitagawa) to help him, what follows is a race to win the Grand Prix with comedic action, absurd moments and a little bit of sentimentality. This movie will also be shown at the Prince Charles Cinema on the 1 June.
The fourth movie is for Japanese horror fans and will be part of the Terra Cotta Horror All-Nighter at the Prince Charles Cinema on 31 May. Lesson of Evil is by the infamous director of Audition, Takashi Miike and follows a popular English teacher Seiji Hasumi played by Hideaki Ito. Although he is trusted and appears to be a nice guy, students start to disappear with horrific results. This all-nighter film session will also include movies from Malaysia, the Philippines, and a joint Japanese-Indonesian movie, Killers.
In this film festival there is also a short film competition which anyone may enter and that has a top prize of a trip to Kuala Lumpur. There will also be Q&A events with some of the movie directors. One to look out for is a possible Q&A with Judge! director Akira Nagai which will be hopefully confirmed soon.
Please check out the Terracotta Far East Film Festival website for full details of all movies, buying tickets as well as special events.