HKIFF Heats Up

the RepoRt
rambling reporter
Andy at the After-party
The Asia Film Awards after-party got off to
a bubbly but sedate start beside the Grand
Hyatt pool, with guests and nominees
clinking glasses and catching each other’s
eyes across the bar. But suddenly, chaos
came over the room. Voices raised and
a scrum of photographers and gawkers
contracted around a shiny focal point in
tuxedo and bow tie: Andy Lau had arrived
at the party. Not surprisingly, the pushy
horde swarming the Hong Kong screen
idol and tracking his movements across
the room weren’t particularly tactful.
Several partygoers toes were stepped
on, drinks got jostled, and one guest
took a telephoto lens to the head. Lau,
eternally gracious, did his best to take it
all in stride, posing for a few photos with
swooning local party girls, and struggling
to make his way from VIP entrance to VIP
exit, with smile and charm intact. Within
five minutes he was gone, leaving a few
pattering hearts and about 50,000 photos
in his wake.
Eastern Escape
Marco Mueller looked cool as a cucumber
as he chatted with Asian industry friends
at the Asia Film Awards after-party last
night. Mueller, the former artistic director
for the Venice Film Festival for the past
eight years, was likely enjoying the respite
from the tensions that have surrounded
his recent appointment as the new director
to his former employer’s chief rival,
the International Rome Film Festival. The
various controversies that have stemmed
from Mr. Mueller’s job change have made
headlines back in Rome, but in Asia at
least, it seems the beleaguered festival
veteran can still fly beneath the radar.
Mother's Helper
Themes of family, and the relationship
between generations in Hong Kong director
Ann Hui’s work were none the more
apparent than on
Monday night,
when the Asian
Film Awards
Lifetime Achievement
Awards
winner skipped
the afterparty at
Hui
the Grand Hyatt
Hotel to take home her 80-something
year-old mother. Hui’s latest film, A Simple
Life, about a mother figure’s bond with
her charge, is making a splash at the AFA,
with its lead Deanie Ip winning the best
actress award. Hui had famously used
her relationship with her mother as the
inspiration to the semi-autobiographical
Song of the Exile.
The 2012 Filmart Poster Awards
THR pays tribute to the most amusing and
over-the-top promotional materials from
the second day of the market
MOST ROMANTIC FACE
SMELLING
Love on tiptoe
Ah, the romance of deeply
smelling your true love’s face.
The mutual face-smelling
underway in this poster is so
deep and all consuming it’s
nearly pornographic. Just
imagine how sweet those
Taiwanese teen-dream pheromones
smell. Or don’t.
BEST MUSTARD BLAZER
Kallag roar
Not since Charles Barkley
rocked it back in the dark ages
of the early 90s have we seen
someone don a mustard blazer
with such aplomb (and check
out that comb-over). Meanwhile,
the rest of the Singaporean
cast are pulling faces
ranging from meek, bemused,
furious and mentally disabled.
4
MOST MISLEADING SILHOUETTE
Generation P
Is that Che Guevara hiding
behind a gilded Asiatic mask?
No, it’s the “lame dog god,”
Pizdyets, whose name means,
“everything is f---ed,” according
to this poster’s bewildering tagline.
What this means and how
it constitutes a “generation”
we’re left to guess. One thing is
clear: The lame movie poster
gods must be pleased.
BEST USE OF TICkING BOMB
the Wedding Diary
Nothing says matrimonial
hijinks like a fat bare foot, but
it's the curious use of a ticking
bomb that is cause for alarm.
Is it a symbolic representation
of nuptial angst, or is the
poster actually commenting
on the film's box office potential?
Either way, this one seems
divorced from reality.
Filmmakers
Target Asia at
Script Stage
By Gavin Blair
Screenwriting for the
Global Market: The Growth
of Asian Themes in Today’s
Box-Office Hits packed in a
full-house at the Stage venue
in the main hall at Filmart on
Tuesday morning.
“The heads of studio executives
are definitely turning toward
Asia, and China in particular,”
said producer Tracey Trench
(The Pink Panther, EverAfter). “
“There are only so many stories
to tell and Hollywood studios are
always looking for new and interesting
ways to tell them. China,
being relatively unfamiliar, is still
interesting,” said Glenn Berger,
writer/producer at DreamWorks
Animation. “Then there are
films like Kung Fu Panda [which
Berger co-wrote], that could only
be set in China.”
Addressing a question about
how Asian filmmakers should
approach making movies in
English for global audiences, the
panelists pointed out that it was
only a matter of time before the
U.S. was no longer the dominant
worldwide market, and barriers
to non English-language productions
will be lower.
“Kung Fu Panda was incredibly
well received in China.
Then there was a second reaction
from China, which was ‘why
couldn't we have made this film,
why did it take Westerners to do
this?’ Which was both interesting
and satisfying in many
ways,” said Berger.
On the issue of raising the
quality of storytelling in Asian
films for the global market, Rita
Hsiao (Mulan, Toy Story),
screenwriter at Blisstone Inc,
described how brutal the feedback
process on scripts in
Hollywood is, and suggested that
a similar system might improve
local films in Asia. thr
THR .com
To download a PDF of the
The Hollywood Reporter’s
Filmart Dailies
go to:THR.com/Filmart.
continued on page xx