Noticias

The progress of the cinema of the region is undisputed. With governments allocating more money in the cinema in a number of the countries of the union, streamers and particularly Neftflix investing heavily, along with foreign companies as in the case of Korean Cj Entertainment in Vietnam, the unique stories from a series of regions where everyday life and the supernatural always went hand in hand, finally found a space to blossom. Following suit from Malaysia, which had a tremendous 2023, Indonesia also made a leap forward this year, headed by a rather strong box office and a catalogue of movies that moved beyond 200 in 2024, even if more than 60 of them are horror movies. Filipino cinema, however, is still on top, in a place it does not seem to lose, particularly since, industry-wise, local cinema seems to be the most organized in the region. Vietnam also seems to on the rise,...

Singapore director Chiang Wei Liang and co-director Yin You Qiao’s “Mongrel,” a portrayal of disenfranchised migrant workers in Taiwan, won Best Asian Feature Film at the 35th Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff).

The jury praised the film’s “dense, shadowy and violent world” and its innovative approach to depicting contemporary issues of forced migration. The film has previously won awards at the Cannes and the Golden Horse festivals and at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Lou Ye’s “An Unfinished Film” won the newly-revised Audience Choice Award. The docufiction drama follows a director attempting to complete a decade-old project during the Covid-19 pandemic, blending footage from Lou’s previous films with new material. The film previously won Golden Horse and Tokyo FILMeX awards.

In the Asian Feature Film Competition, Vietnamese filmmaker Truong Minh Quy received Best Director for “Viet and Nam,” a queer love story about two coal miners facing separation.

Cannes Critics’ Week has picked the projects that will be part of the 11th edition of Next Step, a programme aimed at helping filmmakers whose short films played at Critics’ Week develop their feature debut.

Since its creation 11 years ago, Next Step has accompanied the development of 96 feature projects, with 39 already completed. Recent Next Step alumni that stood out in the festival circuit include Molly Manning Walker with “How to Have Sex;” Chilean director Felipe Gálvez with “The Settlers;” Valentina Maurel with Locarno winner “I Have Electric Dreams;” as well as Matthew Rankin with Universal Language” which won Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award and represents Canada in the Oscar race.

In 2025, seven new features developed at Next Step are expected to roll out at major festivals, notably Morad Mostafa’s “Aisha Can’t Fly Away Anymore” which won Venice’s industry prize, Final Cut, for a film in post production. Next...

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April scored a double win at the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), taking home prizes for best film and best performance for Ia Sukhitashvili.

The Georgian feature centres on a skilled obstetrician at a maternity hospital, who comes under scrutiny after a tragic episode, threatening her secret side job providing unsanctioned abortions. The film premiered at Venice where it won the special jury prize and went on to play Toronto and San Sebastian, winning best film in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition at the latter. Metrograph Pictures picked up North American rights last month.

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Georgian drama film “April” took double honors on Saturday at the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards, winning the best film prize and the best performance prize for Ia Sukhitashvili.

Directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, the film portrays the determination of an obstetrics and gynaecology provider in the face of accusations about the death of a newborn child. The film premiered at the Venice and Toronto festivals in September, earning a special jury prize in Venice and the best film prize in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition.

Sukhitashvili was present at the Apsa ceremony in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, to accept both awards.

Fellow Georgian filmmaker, Tato Kotetishvili was awarded the Apsa for best director for his debut feature, dark comedy “Holy Electricity,” which sees cousins selling neon crucifixes door to door in Tbilisi.

Women’s stories and films from India were also major themes among the awards winners.

Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,...

In this review, we dive deep into Mongrel (2024), the powerful Golden Camera-winning film by Wei Liang Chiang and You Qiao Yin. A raw, unflinching portrait of marginalized communities in Taiwan, the movie follows Oom, a Thai immigrant worker caught in an intense moral and social struggle. With stunning performances, particularly by Wanlop Rungkumjad, and Michael Capron‘s haunting cinematography, Mongrel captures the darkness and humanity of life on the fringes.

While the film’s themes resonate, its extended runtime and controversial final act leave us questioning its impact. Watch as we break down the highs and lows of this hard-hitting festival favorite, fresh from its Five Flavours Film Festival screening.

What did you think of Mongrel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has unveiled the full programme for its 35th edition, which includes honorary awards for Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng and Yang Kuei-mei, and the launch of a Sgiff Industry Days conference.

Set to run from November 28 - December 8, the festival will continue to champion local and regional voices, with Asian cinema representing 80% of the line-up. The full selection comprises 105 films from 45 countries and features recurring themes of migration and displacement as well as the influence of technology on the medium of film.

The Asian Feature Film Competition, the festival’s main competition section, showcases nine features by promising directors across Asia,...

The Busan International Film Festival will expand its screening program by some 8% in what it calls “an effort to maintain a scale befitting Asia’s top film festival.” This is despite a 50% cut in government financial support.

The festival will open on Oct. 2 with “Uprising,” a star-studded period drama from Netflix that was scripted and produced by Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”) and directed by Kim Sang-man.

It will close on Oct. 11 with the Eric Khoo-directed “Spirit World,” which the Singaporean director shot in Japan with French icon Catherine Deneuve in the lead role.

“Uprising” involves a servant (played by Gang Dong-won) and his master, the som of a noble family with military connections. While they agree that the servant should be free, complications arise. The film also stars Cha Seung-won, Kim Shin-rock, Jin Sun-kyu and Jung Sung-il. “With Park Chan-wook’s signature humor oozing through the well-woven narrative, full of intense conflict and tension,...

Even though we do not like to admit it, many of us depend on the sweat of immigrant workers to maintain the living standard we have grown accustomed to. Whether we are talking about the thousands of migrant workers crossing the US-Mexican border into the United States to work as nannies or gardeners or whether they are the hundreds of migrant workers taking care of elderly people in many Asian cultures, immigrant workers often do the kind of jobs others will not touch anymore. For many years, Singaporean director Wei Liang Chiang has tackled the subject of immigrant workers, their status and their daily struggles in short features such as “Jin Zhi Xia Mao” (2015) and has teamed up with fellow filmmaker You Qiao Yin for “Mongrel”. The story about a group of immigrant workers in Taiwan deals with many of the issues we know from Chiang's other features, while...

Thai sales company Diversion has acquired worldwide rights to Sivaroj Kongsakul’s Regretfully At Dawn, which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition of the upcoming San Sebastian Film Festival.

It marks the second feature of Thai filmmaker Sivaroj, whose 2010 debut Eternity won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam as well as top prizes at Hong Kong International Film Festival and Deauville Asian Film Festival.

Regretfully At Dawn follows a war veteran nearing the end of his life and his bright young niece who has a promising future ahead of her. They live quietly in a small province outside...

The Melbourne International Film Festival has set ten features to play in its Bright Horizons competition section.

They include: India Donaldson’s “Good One”; Luna Carmoon’s “Hoard”; Annie Baker’s “Janet Planet”; Leonardo Van Dijl’s “Julie Keeps Quiet”; Ena Sendijarević’s “Sweet Dreams”; Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language”; Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise”; Gints Zabalodis’ animated “Flow”; Rungano Nyoni’s “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”; and Australian director Charles Williams’ debut feature “Inside.”

The non-competitive Headliners section, which showcases films that have premiered at other festivals, includes: Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”; Mumbai-based director Payal Kapadia was recently the first Indian director for 30 years with a film in competition in Cannes presents “All We Imagine as Light”; Coralie Fargeat’s Demi Moore-starring “The Substance”; Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Sebastian Stan in Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”; Cannes best director-winning Asian odyssey,...

The 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has launched its entire program for the Aug. 15-21 event, where it will screen 37 new feature films and 18 world premieres.

Ten world premieres will compete for the new Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence as the fest showcases talent from filmmakers in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Mexico, Norway, China, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Iran and beyond. Screenings will take place in the heart of Scotland’s picturesque capital at some of the city’s most iconic venues including Cameo Cinema, Summerhall, and 50 George Square.

Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, starring Saoirse Ronan, was previously confirmed as the Fest’s opening night film, with the world premiere of Carla J. Easton and Blair Young’s documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands set to close. Its Midnight Madness strand will close with the body horror The Substance, starring Demi Moore.

Daisy-May Hudson’s fiction debut Lollipop, a documentary about a man’s relationship with a life-sized AI-animated doll and Nina Conti’s Cannes Great 8 title Sunlight are among 18 world premieres at the new-look Edinburgh International Film Festival.

A total of 37 feature films form the line-up of Eiff’s 77th edition, which is the first under the leadership of Paul Ridd as festival director and Andrew Macdonald as chair. The line-up includes 10 world premieres in the running for the £50,000 Sean Connery prize for feature filmmaking excellence, plus four retrospective screenings, a Midnight Madness strand and five short film programmes.

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The jury of Greta Gerwig, filmmakers J. A. Bayona, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nadine Labaki, acting folks Eva Green, Omar Sy, Lily Gladstone and Pierfrancesco Favino with the all-in-one Ebru Ceylan chose Sean Baker’s Anora as the film worthy of the Palme d’Or. As usual, we were on hand to witness those who claimed an award during the evening. Below are small video snip-its:

Palme d’or: Anora by Sean Baker

Grand Prix: All We Imagine As Light by Payal Kapadia

Jury Prize: Emilia PÉREZ by Jacques Audiard

Best Director: Miguel Gomes for Grand Tour

Special Award: Mohammad Rasoulof for The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Best Performance by an Actress: Adriana Paz, Zoe SALDAÑA, Karla SOFÍA GASCÓN & Selena Gomez in Emilia Pérez directed by Jacques Audiard

Best Screenplay: The Substance by Coralie Fargeat

Short Film Palme d’or: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent by Nebojša Slijepčević

Special...

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival was officially closed yesterday, on May 25, 2024, as the prizes for the movies and the actors were awarded at the closing ceremony. It was a very exciting and content-filled event, and we have also reported on numerous movies that had their premiere at Cannes, some of which were received well, while others… not so much. But, naturally, everyone wants to know who won and who lost at Cannes, and that is what we are going to report about in this article.

The article will be divided into two main sections. The first one will list all the juries at Cannes, since they are the ones who chose the winners at the film festival, so we think that it is only fair that you know who picked the winners. After that, we are going to list all the winners in each of the categories.

As we have said,...

George Lucas has received an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.The 80-year-old filmmaker - who is best known for creating the 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' franchises - has been handed the prestigious accolade at the annual awards ceremony in Cannes, France, with George admitting that it's "always great to be recognized".Speaking to French reporter Didier Allouch, George shared: "Obviously we have a lot of fans, but, in terms of 'Star Wars' and stuff, I don't make the kind of movies that win awards."George feels proud that he decided to follow his own instincts as a filmmaker.The acclaimed director - who served as the chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012 - said: "I was just a student observer and I was bored to death. I said, ‘I don't want to make Hollywood movies. I know how to do this.

Sean Baker’s Anora has won the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which wrapped Saturday night (May 25).

The US comedy-drama stars Mikey Madison as the titular Anora, a sex worker who finds herself married to a Russian oligarch and must fend off his parents who are keen for an annulment. It marks Baker’s second time in Competition, following 2021’s Red Rocket.

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In his speech, Baker devoted the award “to all sex workers past, present and future”, and voiced his support for theatrical distribution: “The future of cinema is where...

Cannes — Nine years after being named one of Variety’s Directors to Watch, Sean Baker won the Palme d’Or for “Anora,” a rowdy whirlwind romance between an exotic dancer (Mikey Madison) and the obscenely rich son of a Russian oligarch (played by Mark Eydelshteyn). Baker is the first American filmmaker to cinch the festival’s top prize since Terrence Malick earned the Palme for “The Tree of Life” in 2011.

“Anora” is Baker’s third film to debut at Cannes, following “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket.” He accepted the award from two-time Palme d’Or winner Francis Ford Coppola, whose “Megalopolis” went home empty-handed. Coppola also presented an honorary Palme d’Or to his friend and fellow legend George Lucas, whom he called his “own kid brother.”

Baker dedicated the award to “all sex workers, past, present and future,” underscoring the importance of “making films intended for theatrical exhibition.

Few periods on the calendar mean more to cinephiles than the two weekends in May occupied by the Cannes Film Festival. Since its founding in 1946, the French festival has been a launchpad for some of the most artistically significant films of all time. The Palme d’Or is one of the most coveted film awards on the planet, and the festival’s ability to balance subversive arthouse work with major Hollywood premieres has led many to view it as the world’s most significant celebration of cinema.

The 2024 lineup featured a mix of buzzy premieres from New Hollywood titans like Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader alongside exciting new works from emerging directors. Between the Main Competition, Un Certain Regard, special screenings, and sidebars like the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week, the onslaught of new films can be overwhelming for anyone who isn’t able to give the festival their 24/7 attention.

Anita Gou is no stranger to the festival circuit. Her L.A.-based Kindred Spirit banner saw a raft of its first projects debut at Sundance but, more recently, her co-production Silent Twins was selected in Un Certain Regard in 2022, while Dominic Savage’s Close To You premiered in Toronto last year. The company’s Mubi-acquired doc The Last Year of Darkness, which explores the lives of alternative Chinese youth, was awarded a Special Mention prize in the Next:Wave section at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival last year.

This year, the producer, who has roots in Taiwan, was back in Cannes with Locust, the debut feature from Taiwanese-American filmmaker Keff, which played in Cannes Critics’ Week. The project is set during the 2019 Hong Kong protests and follows Zhong-Han,...

As the Cannes Film Festival and the Marché du Film are both set to open on the 14th of May, Taiwan Creative Content Agency (Taicca) is making a big splash with films and projects it has supported selected in multiple sections. It will also be making its presence felt with several projects pitching at the market. Six films supported by Taicca co-production initiatives or investment will premiere at the festival. These are Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot in Cannes Premiere, The Shameless in Un Certain Regard, Locust in Critics Week, Mongrel in Directors' Fortnight, Colored in the Immersive Competition, and Missing Pictures: Naomi Kawase in the Immersive Selection. Further Taiwanese talent will be on show as Traversing the Mist by Tung-Yen Chou is also selected for the Immersive Competition; actor Eddie Peng is headlining Black Dog in Un Certain Regard; and actors Lee Kang-Sheng and Wu Ke-Xi feature in Blue Sun...

Unlike Cannes’ industry-catered competition section, the festival’s independent sidebar Directors’ Fortnight defines itself around audience outreach.

Headquartered halfway down the Croisette, equidistant from the Palais des Festivals, where the official selection screens for an industry-only crowd, Fortnight embraces the sprawl. The 56th edition programs 21 features and another eight shorts from May 15-25 (starting with Sophie Fillières’ posthumous “This Life of Mine”) while bringing select titles to many theaters far from the main drag.

That same selection will also offer the easiest point of access for so many locals, for whom Fortnight is often synonymous with Cannes, and who can always count on a 30-minute Q&a after each screening. Further afield, however, that clarity of identity begins to fade.

For one thing, the showcase doesn’t have a recognizable pitchman. In the time since Thierry Frémaux took over the official selection in 2004, Directors’ Fortnight has seen four artistic directors come and go,...

The social mistreatment of caregivers is interrogated in indie film “Mongrel,” which will debut at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes.

Written and directed by Chiang Wei Liang, “Mongrel” follows Oom (Wanlop Rungkumjad), a professional caregiver who has no papers or formal training but is good at caring for the elderly and disabled. When his situation as a caregiver in the mountains becomes too much for him, he has to choose between survival or dignity.

Kuo Shu-Wei and Atchara Suwan also star.

Chiang told IndieWire that the inspiration for “Mongrel” came from his own personal experiences working as a caregiver in Taiwan.

“The film came from a convergence of personal experiences and societal observations,” he said. “My own journey as a caregiver, alongside encounters with migrant caregivers, laid the groundwork.”

In a press statement, Chiang reflected on how “Mongrel” is unfortunately a universal story that enters on the “precarious, invisible lives of undocumented migrant workers,...