The 11th edition of Five Flavours Asian Film Festival will be held on November 15 – 22 in Warsaw, in Muranów and Kinoteka cinemas and in the Museum of Modern Art. The program includes over 40 feature films and nine short films. Eight selected pictures will also be screened in Wrocław, in New Horizons Cinema on November 17 – 23.
The majority of the films will be shown in Poland for the first time, and two pictures from Bhutan will have their international premieres at the Festival. We will also host a number of guests from Asia.
The 2017 edition continues the visual identification based on the Lunar Calendar and zodiac signs. Thus, 2017 is the year of the Fire Rooster.
The festival screens films from South East, East and South Asia and is the only film event in Poland focused primarily on Asian Cinema. For eleven consecutive years, Five Flavours has brought to Poland premiere screenings of the latest and most appealing productions, classics and retrospectives of renowned Asian filmmakers. Previous editions saw the pioneering programs of cinema from Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong.
The world of Asian cinema is growing and expanding rapidly – artists from the smallest regions of the continent are finding their way to international festival audiences, independent filmmakers unite across borders to speak out about the most difficult subjects, the producers of local blockbusters are more and more successful in competing with global giants. FiveFlavours Film Festival invites everyone to discover and experience this bustling universe. The viewers will have a chance to encounter the wildest productions of Asian pop culture, admire contemplative film poems and engage in discussions about art, politics and challenges of the modern world.
The program of the Festival is comprised mostly of titles unknown in Poland, unavailable in regular distribution. The wide selection includes auteur cinema, as well as high-quality genre cinema; daring works of independent filmmakers and commercial blockbusters which hold a special place in the cinematic landscape of Asia. The previous editions of Five Flavoursincluded pioneering retrospectives of cinema from Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The screenings are accompanied by a diverse program of additional events, including meetings with directors and other film guests, critics or experts, debates, workshops.
Like every year, the highlight of Five Flavours program is the New Asia Cinema competition section, presenting fresh voices and outstanding productions that address current issues and broaden the boundaries of film imagination. Films from Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh or Japan will compete for the Grand Prix of the Festival.
The program includes a section devoted to the cinema of on of the most mysterious Asian countries, the Himalayan Bhutan, and the retrospective of a key new wave filmmaker, one of the most important people in the Hong Kong film industry, Ann Hui. The program includes also a fair share of genre cinema, featured in the section devoted to the avant-garde erotic productions from Japan, and in the Asian Cinerama section, a review of Asian Film Awards winners and nominees. Also devoted to the genre films is the Restored Classics section.
OPENING AND CLOSING FILMS
On November 15, the 11th edition of Five Flavour will begin with the screening of "Our Time Will Come," the new directed by Ann Hui, whose retrospective is a part of this year’s program. The film portrays the local resistance movement in the 1940s, and its relation to modern Hong Kong touches upon one of the most important themes in the director's works – the question of the identity of an individual in a wide, sociopolitical context.
The festival will close with a film directed by the most internationally renown Bhutanese filmmaker and a Buddhist monk, Khyentse Norbu. "Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait" ("Hema Hema" means "a long time ago") is a visually stunning, avant-garde drama, combining the traditions of a Shakespearean tragedy with Buddhist tales of death and desire.
COMPETITION SECTION: NEW ASIAN CINEMA
Like every year, the highlight of Five Flavours program is the New Asia Cinema competition section, presenting fresh voices and outstanding productions that address current issues and broaden the boundaries of film imagination. Creative, widely discussed films from Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Malaysia or Japan will compete for the Grand Prix of the Festival.
The winner of the main award (3500 EUR), founded by the director of Polish Film Institute, will be chosen by People's Jury – a group of cinema enthusiasts and Asian cultures fans. NETPAC, the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema will also award one of the competition films.
New Asian Cinema Award Nominees:
- Bankoku naitsu / Bangkok Nites, dir. Katsuya Tomita, Japan/Laos/Thailand/France 2016
- Madilim ang Gabi / Dark is the Night, dir. Adolfo Alix Jr, Philippines 2017
- Qing song jia yu kuai / Free and Easy, dir. Geng Jun, Hong Kong 2017
- Yi lu shun feng / Godspeed, dir. Chung Mong-hong, Taiwan 2016
- Munmo Tashi Khyidron / Honeygiver Among the Dogs, dir. Dechen Roder, Bhutan 2016
- KFC, dir. Le Binh Giang, Vietnam 2017
- Live From Dhaka, dir. Abdullah Mohammad Saad, Bangladesh 2016
- Yat nim mou ming / Mad World, dir. Wong Chun, Hong Kong 2016
- Marlina si Pembunuh dalam Empat Babak / Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, dir. Mouly Surya, Indonesia/Malaysia/Thailand/France 2017
- Mrs K, dir. Ho Yuhang, Malaysia/Hong Kong/China 2016
- Yamato (California), dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, Japan 2016
Contemporary Bhutanese cinema invites the audiences to one of the most inaccessible parts of the world, combining unique local artistic traditions and Buddhist philosophy with an intriguing, ambitious form and interesting generic conventions. The retrospective at FiveFlavours is a rare opportunity to discover the culture of the Himalayan kingdom – both its traditional and modern side.
The Japanese erotic cinema, the so-called pinku eiga, was thriving at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s when major labels underwent a severe financial crisis. The niche, fast-produced flicks have become a shelter for the most avant-garde filmmakers, who have taken the opportunity to experiment and explore the boundaries of cinema, often smuggling political content in-between the sex scenes. The Nikkatsu studio played a special role in this field with its Roman Porno series, highlighting the artistic values of erotic genre and giving the directors unlimited freedom in choosing their topics. In 2016 Nikkatsu announced a reactivation of the cult production label, inviting the most extreme Japanese filmmakers and aiming at a new generation of audience with more and more female viewers enjoying the genre.
A retrospective of a prominent author of the Hong Kong New Wave and the most influential female director in modern Hong Kong cinema. Hui inspects the everyday life and ordinary heroes, using their perspective to show the complex history of Hong Kong, the crossroads between the traditional Chinese culture the reality of a British colony. Memories and flashbacks are used to speak about cultural identity, as well as history and politics shaping it in an individual and social dimension.
For the first time, Five Flavours features a special program curated in collaboration with Asian Film Awards Academy, an institution created by festivals in Busan, Hong Kong, and Tokyo to promote Asian cinema year round, and to support young filmmakers. Asian Cinerama section introduces six major films from the Asian Film Awards to the Polish audience.
Exploring the roots of modern aesthetics of Asian cinema, Five Flavours rediscovers the outstanding achievements of the past decades. It is a unique opportunity to dig into the lesser-known history of cinema and to see restored classics on a big screen. One of the focal points of the section is a screening of a restored masterpiece of the Japanese avant-garde, "Tokyo Drifter" (1966) directed by Seijun Suzuki who died on February 13 of this year.
Special Screenings section showcases the works of prominent filmmakers and the most talked-about premieres of the past year, including new films by directors well-known to the Festival’s audience – Naoko Ogigami and Sion Sono, and debutantes at the beginning of their film careers – participants of the Hong Kong Fresh Wave program, which supports young talents and the development of independent cinema.
During the Festival, we will hold two thematic film marathons. One of them, the Corponight, is dedicated to all-kinds-of-business people. The program includes three films – a crime story from Hong Kong, a melodrama from Japan, and a horror from Thailand – which employ a variety of genre conventions for a metaphorical analysis of the culture of advertising, marketing, and estate developers.
The second special evening s the night with Baahubali. The program includes two parts of the saga devoted to the hero – the biggest success in the history of Tollywood, the cinema of Southern India. The saga became a social phenomenon, gathering a cult following similar to the global "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" craze. The stunning visual effects and the emotional plot amazed audiences all over the world, from China to the US.
The festival is traditionally preceded by Asian Horror Night held in Muranów cinema on October 28. The program includes three horror films: "Satan’s Slaves" from Indonesia, "The Promise" from Thailand, and "Kotoko" from Japan.
ASIAN ACADEMY AND FESTIVAL MEETINGS
A cycle of lectures deepening the understanding of festival films – an opportunity to discover the sociopolitical contexts, aesthetic traditions, the relationship between cinema, everyday life and the current events in Asia. This year, the festival meetings include lectures devoted to both political and aesthetic topics. The invited experts will talk about the culture of Bhutan and Indonesia, political and economic entanglements of modern Hong Kong, the influence of traditional Chinese aesthetics on the modern cinema, and the influence of the recently deceased Japanese master, Seijun Suzuki, on the gangster film genre.
The lectures will be held in the seminar room in the Museum of Modern Art at Pańska street.
Despite the Q&A sessions with festival guests, which take place after the screenings of their films, the program also includes special debates. During the meeting with director Dechen Roden, we will learn more about the film industry in Bhutan. Hong Kong producer Roger Lee will talk about his cooperation with Ann Hui, whose retrospective is a part of this year’s program. A young Polish director, Weronika Milczewska, will talk about making a documentary film in India. At the meeting with traveler Renata Koper, we will listen to Bhutanese tales and legends.
EXHIBITION – DANWEN XING. A PERSONAL DIARY: THE CHINESE AVANT-GARDE 1993–2003
Part of the Festival program is comprised of events connected with the Museum of Modern Art exhibition of the works of a Chinese photographer documenting the life of a Chinese Bohemia of the 1990s. Danwen Xing portraits the generation of artists born during the Cultural Revolution, interested in visual arts, experimental theater, new music scene, and film. One of those filmmakers was Yang Chao, the director of "Crosscurrent" shown at this year’s Five Flavours, and the guest of the Festival.
During the Festival, the audiences can participate in guided tours led by the curator, Magda Lipska, attend a lecture devoted to the Chinese avant-garde movement, and the screenings of two documentary films portraying the life of independent artists ("Diary: Snow, November 21, 1998", dir. Wu Wengwuang, China 1988, "Bumming in Beijing", dir. Wu Wengwuang, China 1990).
VOD
A virtual edition of Five Flavours Film Festival will be available online in at VoD.pl on November 10 – 30. The program includes films from New Asian Cinema competition, some of the hits from last year’s edition of the festival (including "Apocalypse Child" directed by Mario Cornejo, winner of the Grand Prix), short features from the Hong Kong Fresh Wave cycle and other selected festival titles.
RADIO ASIA FESTIVAL
17-21 December 2017
Concerts, workshops, radio dramas and an Asian jam-session. This year marks the third season of Radio Asia – concerts devoted to niche Asian music. The event will take the form of a five-day festival held on December 17-21. Like every year, we present unique artists, who never cease to explore and experiment, merging the traditional and the local with their personal, modern music vision.
The Festival is comprised of five concerts by Asian artists, day-long music workshops, a radio drama devoted to the most interesting phenomena combining the traditional and contemporary scene of the Far East, and an Asian jam-session – an improvised concert, in which everyone can perform along the festival musicians.
Tickets for screenings at Muranów and Kinoteka cinemas (except special events and marathons): 20 PLN
Events in the Museum of Modern Art: free entrance
Tickets for screenings on Monday and every day before 5 PM: 15 PLN
Tickets for all the screenings are available online at piecsmakow.pl and at the Going website.
Tickets are also available in the ticket office of the cinema where the screening is held: Muranów cinema – 22 635 30 78, muranow.gutekfilm.pl, Kinoteka – 22 551 70 70, kinoteka.pl.
All films are screened in original language versions with English and Polish subtitles.
The replica of Five Flavours in Wrocław's New Horizons Cinema (November 17-23) is made up of 8 titles representing all festival sections. The full program is available at kinonh.pl.
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Organizer: Arteria Art Foundation
Contact:
Emilia Skiba
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+48 606 557 279
The project is financially supported by Warsaw City Council, Polish Film Institute, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Japan Foundation, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Central and Eastern Europe, Create HK and HK Film Development Fund. Mobility supported by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF).
