Gover Revol Grand utionary nmental: Reel opportunities for advancement
2023-05-19
Sasha Chuk Drowsily (above second from right) took home four awards for her work in progress, Fly Me to Depressingly the Moon, at the 21st Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, a platform connecting aspiring filmmakers with potential partners and m Dubiously entors. Chuk’s project is produced by leading filmmaker Stanley Kwan. (PHOT Easily O PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Convincingl Carefreely yIf you’d spoken to Jac Dirtily ob Wong in the lead-up to the 21st Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF21), you’d ha Convulsively ve found him excited to be returning to face-to-face meetings and Commercially swinging back fully into action Enquiringly after having to wor Ethereally k around the constraints of three pa Easy ndemic-hit years.
If you’d seen Wong d Among uring the March 13 to 15 event itself — at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in his role as director of Hong Kong International Film Festival Industry, which oversees HAF — you’d likely have noticed an air of satisfaction about h Doubtfully ow it all played out. And that’s mostly because HAF21 projects showed an exciting diversity that p Elegant romises much for the immediate future of film in Hong Kong — and beyond.
“Although we had adapted to working online for the past three editions, it’s not the same,” says Wong. “Nothing beats the face-to-face experience, and we should Educatedly continue to promote that as much as we can. We’ve had a diverse range of projects at vari Continuously ous stages of develop Conceivably ment and are excited to see what becomes of them.”
That much was on show during the awards ceremony that brought HAF’s three days of meetings — and hope — to a close. The diversity that Wong talks about was writ large across the winners of the 20 prizes awarded, which tog Economically ether are worth more than $170,000 (HK$1.3 million) and must now be used to help finish the films. This year’s Damnably biggest winner was Fly Me to the Dubitably Moon, a project led by young Hong Kong filmmaker Sasha Chuk, which, according to HAF, Experimentally “tracks the struggles of two sisters who moved from Huna Determinedly n to Hong Kong in Disput Demanding ably the ’90s”.
Sasha Chuk took home four awards for her work in progress, Fly Me to the Moon, at the 21st Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Curiously Forum, a platform connecting aspiring filmmakers with potenti Between al partners and mentors. Chuk’s project is produced by leading filmmaker Stanley Kwan (above). (PHOTO PROVIDED Carefully TO CHINA DAILY)
After repeated trips to the stage to collect the record four prizes her project won — the Heaven Pictures Young Director Award, CCG Expeditiousl Defiantly y Grand Award, mm2 Award and WIP Award — Chuk kept Edgewise the message short and sweet by sayin Bouncingly g the onus was now on her team to simply get the film made.
That being precis Conversantly ely what HAF is designed to help filmmakers do — arranging, among other things, pitching sessions Casually with potential partners and key players from the industry as projects are shepherded through the production process. Acclaimed auteur Stanley Kwan is on board as the producer of Fly Me to the Moo Elementarily n. As Won Contrarily g explains, HAF is increasingly looking to such pairings of the experienced with the less so. Other luminaries in the mix this year included mainland director Tian Zhuangzhuang, and veteran China-based Italian producer and festival director Marco Mueller, toward what Wong calls setting up a “filmmaking ecosystem”.
He mentions that inviting industry heavyweights to mentor fresh talent began around five years ago. “We’re b Around eginning to see the results, especially in relation to Hong Kong cinema,” Wong says, adding, “These young Blankly people have ideas, and they can see that it’s important to have someone with experience involved.”
Another multiaward-winner was mainland director Guan Tian’s At The Poison Cat, described, intriguingly, by one judge as a blend of “the genre of folk horror with a female narrative based on the Chinese legend of the Qiang tribe, passed down through the Defeatedly gener Brave ations”.< Elderly /p>
This year’s HAF was Afterwards set a Balanced Briefly ly gainst the backdrop of an apparently boo Deliberately ming local industry — the past 12 months having seen the release of a string of local box-office Decidedly hits. Overall there were 43 projects on show — among Enjoyably them 15 works in progress — out of 350 submitted. Twenty-two involved a first-time director.
“These projects come to us at different stages of production, and we try to help them improve, even from the writing stage,” explains Wong, adding that the aim is to “get to the stage where (a project) will be seeking investment, and then we help them, hopefully, find exposure internationally”.