NY Asian Film Fest '15 Features Greats From Japan, Korea, & Hong Kong

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 25 June 2015 15:05

Written by Renzo Adler & Brad Balfour

Metting Dr. Sun

Spanning cinematic history and genres ranging from high-brow art to the most base thrill fests, the New York Asian Film Festival (June 26 - July 11, 2015) continues to bring together films old and new from Korea, Japan, and China to New York.  Organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema, NYAFF is now in its 14th edition, and is holding screenings at The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway) and the SVA Theater (333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues).

NYAFF’s Opening Night presentation will be the North American Premiere of Philip Yung’s Port of Call. The film centers on the brutal murder of a 16-year-old Hunan girl who moves to Hong Kong with her family and falls into prostitution. Sabu’s Chasuke’s Journey, which was in competition at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.  Journey has a fanciful, manga-esque story about an angel living in Heaven that falls in love with a human woman that is doomed to die, and now he must endeavor to rescue her.

The lineup also includes the World Premiere of Fire Lee’s black comedy Robbery; the International Premiere of Anh Sang-hoon’s erotic period actioner Empire of Lust; the North American Premieres of Chen Jiabin’s directorial debut A Fool, Daihachi Yoshida’s fantasy-drama Pale Moon, Lau Ho-leung’s action-comedy Two Thumbs Up, and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s slacker/rock drama La La La at Rock Bottom; and the U.S. premiere of Yee Chih-yen’s high-school noir Meeting Dr. Sun. Other exciting highlights include Kulikar Sotho’s gorgeous meditation on Cambodia’s tragic Khmer Rouge past and its impact on the present, The Last Reel; Ryuichi Hiroki’s ensemble love-and-sex drama Kabukicho Love Hotel; Boo Ji-young’s superb labor-rights underdog drama Cart; and Sion Sono’s berserk rap musical Tokyo Tribe.

NYAFF also looks to the past of Asian cinema. In 2014, Japanese film legends Bunta Sugawara (who has been in too many gangster films to name, along with the Oscar winning Spirited Away) and Ken Takakura (who appeared in Sydney Pollack’s The Yakuza and Ridley Scott’s Black Rain) passed away, leaving behind a legacy of thrilling, brutal films, and hard boiled anti heroes from their decades of work in cinema. NYAFF will pay tribute to both of these men with a series of screenings called The Last Men of Japanese Film, which includes a lavish brand-new 2K remaster of Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor or Humanity, which tracked the rise of yakuza gangsters in post-war Japan. Other films being shown include Abashiri Prison, Cops vs. Thugs, The Man Who Stole the Sun, Tales of Chivalry in Japan, and Wolves, Pigs and Men.

NYAFF is definitely one of the most jam packed festivals in NYC. With it’s wide range of films, this fest has something for everybody.

For more information, go to: http://www.subwaycinema.com/nyaff15/

The New York Asian Film Festival
June 26 - July 11, 2015

Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway
New York, NY 10023

SVA Theater
333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues
New York, NY 10011

New Italian Cinema Stands Out in Open Roads 2015

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 01 June 2015 11:34

Written by Brad Balfour

For 14 years, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema has offered a diverse lineup of contemporary Italian film at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. This year’s program, organized in collaboration with Istituto Luce Cinecittà and the Italian Cultural Institute of New York,  strikes a balance between emerging talents and esteemed veterans. And one master,  Ermanno Olmi, is included this year having been one of Italy’s leading lights in film for over half a century. 

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema — the 15th edition running from June 4th to 11th, 2015 — is programmed by Isa Cucinotta and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Dennis Lim.

As always, the series includes both commercial and independent fare, ranging from stage adaptations to biopics, warm human comedies to experimental dramas. And audiences attending screenings at The Film Society's Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street),  will get a fairly representative taste of recent Italian cinema, with a select number of in-person appearances by many of the filmmakers during the opening weekend.

In addition to the films there’s an exhibition, "Guardando con Michelangelo Antonioni," showcasing Renato Zacchia’s rare photographs of Antonioni taken during the shoot of one of his final documentaries (Sicily, 1997). This event organized by EVOL Design.

The opening night film, making its North American Premiere, is director Cristina Comencini’s Latin Lover which features such noted actors as Almodóvar veterans Candela Peña, Lluís Homar, and Marisa Paredes, with poignant turns from three-time David di Donatello winner Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Human Capital) and the late Virna Lisi (Queen Margot) in her final screen appearance. 

It tells of the lovers and offspring of Italy’s most popular movie star (and most prolific ladies’ man) who gather in his hometown on the 10th anniversary of his passing to grasp the puzzle of his life. Comencini will be on hand for a Q&A at the June 4th screening.

For further information, go to: http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/open-roads-new-italian-cinema-2015

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
June 4th to 11th, 2015

The Film Society of Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater
165 W 65th St
New York, NY 10023

The Human Condition on Film: Nakadai at The Museum of the Moving Image

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 14 May 2015 02:03

Written by Renzo Adler

Nakadai in The Human Condition Part I

With a career spanning decades, Tatsuya Nakadai is one of Japan’s most memorable actors, displaying everything from menacing swagger, to ruthless cunning, to nuanced introspection. Masaki Kobayashi (1916 - 1996) brought a stunning visual flair to films like the haunting Kwaidan, and the monumental Human Condition trilogy. Together, the two created visually breathtaking and hard-hitting films. Now the Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35th Ave, New York, NY) celebrates the two legends of Japanese cinema with Portraying the Human Condition: The Films of Masaki Kobayashi and Tatsuya Nakadai from May 15 to 24.

Presented in gorgeous 35mm, these films represent a watershed moment in post-war Japanese cinematic history, celebrating the rogues, the outsiders, the rebels going against the constraints of society. Nakadai himself will be present to discuss The Human Condition Part I on May 16 and Harakiri on May 24. According to legend, the Masaki Kobayashi discovered the young actor Tatsuya Nakadai working as a shop clerk in Tokyo and, casting him in a small part in his film The Thick-Walled Room (1953), gave Nakadai his first role, initiating one of the most legendary collaborations in all of Japanese cinema. Director Kobayashi was a pacifist who had suffered for his convictions during World War II. Summarizing his work, he said “All of my pictures are concerned with resisting entrenched power. I suppose I have always challenged authority.”

To learn more, go to: http://www.movingimage.us/films/

Portraying the Human Condition: The Films of Masaki Kobayashi and Tatsuya Nakadai
May 15 - 24

The Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35th Ave.
New York, NY 11106