With the inaugural Festival of Young Cinema (Asia-Europe) getting off to a great start, emerging filmmakers from all across China have one more platform to pitch their works in progress. Mathew Scott reports from Macao.
Filmmakers at the first-ever Festival of Young Cinema (Asia-Europe) in Macao, held on Jan 2024. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
While the likes of Oscar-winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Hong Kong auteur Yonfan attracted the spotlight — and the crowds — it was the behind-the-scenes activities at the inaugural Festival of Young Cinema (Asia-Europe) in Macao that revealed the event’s true purpose.
While film festivals are primarily targeted at their audiences — serving them a mix of the hottest contemporary fare with dips into cinema history — increasingly their agendas also include a focus on the business of making films.
Hence the Macao festival — which ran from Jan 5-11 — featured a Work-In-Progress (WIP) initiative, focused on emerging Chinese talents. New and up-and-coming filmmakers were encouraged to compete for awards that cover production-related services such as color correction and sound work to help get their films over the line and, hopefully, into cinemas.
Huo Meng shoots on location for his film, The Wind is Unstoppable, which won a Work-In-Progress award at the festival.(PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Love in a factory town
The inaugural WIP sidebar featured 15 productions — including two from the host city — which were screened for representatives from international film festivals as well as distributors and sales agents.
The Fang Liang-directed Water Can Go Anywhere — a love story set against the backdrop of the factories of Guangdong province — picked up one of the five WIP awards on offer. A judging panel that included Hong Kong distributor and producer Esther Yeung and producer Wang Yang from the Chinese mainland has called it a “rich emotional experience”.
For Fang — a graduate of the film production and filmmaking program at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts — the festival was an opportunity to both present his work to industry peers as well as receive feedback before he makes the final cuts and starts looking around for prospective screening platforms.
A scene from Meng’s award-winning rural drama. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
“Growing up in Yueyang, in Hunan province, where many people led silent, fading lives without leaving a trace, my memories of them remain vivid,” says the director. “I wanted to use my film to narrate the stories of the people and experiences I had encountered. I focused on the story of a vulnerable, confused, and helpless young man, reflecting on how society transforms an individual from a simple being to a complex one.”
Fang is among an ever-growing number of Chinese-language filmmakers learning their craft in Hong Kong.
“For me, film is not only an industry that’s reliant on professional skills, but it’s also a cultural endeavor,” he says. “Hong Kong being a highly international city while maintaining its roots in Chinese culture is what prompted my decision to study film production there. The most valuable aspect of studying film in Hong Kong was gaining a comprehensive understanding of the entire process, from script to visual realization. This equipped me to swiftly transition into an independent filmmaker upon graduation.”
A scene from Meng’s award-winning rural drama. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Recognizing diversity
The festival’s artistic director, Marco Mueller, who has helped steer major international film festivals, including Venice and Rotterdam in the past, says the main positives are that the WIP projects draw the attention of both international and regional festival representatives — which suggests that the chances of these films traveling, and screening, widely are now high.
“The international festival representatives came, and almost every one of them said that they saw at least four or five things that they could consider. So this could definitely set up a lot of interest among sales agents,” Mueller explains. “I am happy also because of the diversity in the awarded projects — from a working class story to a fantasy story. Luckily, the jury immediately singled out one based on Macao.”
Fang Liang’s Water Can Go Anywhere portrays a love story set against the backdrop of the factories of Guangdong province. The director says his film follows a young man’s journey through life’s complexities. The film won a Work-In-Progress award at the Festival of Young Cinema (Asia-Europe) 2024. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
The WIP awardees include Tang Yongkang’s Stars and the Moon, which imagines an alien presence in the Chinese countryside; and the family drama Revisit by director Harriet Wong Teng-teng, who is from Macao.
“Thanks to the festival, our film got a chance to be seen and liked by international filmmakers, programmers, and sales agents. The festival provides a very high-quality platform for young Chinese filmmakers, connecting them with the global market,” says Zhang Fan, the producer of the Huo Meng-directed rural drama The Wind is Unstoppable, which also won a WIP award.
Fang Liang’s Water Can Go Anywhere portrays a love story set against the backdrop of the factories of Guangdong province. The director says his film follows a young man’s journey through life’s complexities. The film won a Work-In-Progress award at the Festival of Young Cinema (Asia-Europe) 2024. (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Spotting talent
The WIP initiative joins other similar and more well-established programs at events across China, including the FIRST Lab at the FIRST International Film Festival in Xining, Qinghai province, and the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, run annually by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.
Hong Kong’s leading role in the growth of Chinese-language cinema across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was reflected in the strong presence of the city’s filmmakers and industry players at the festival. For some of them, the delegation, hosted by China Film Directors Guild’s young director support program, proved to be a happy hunting ground for spotting emerging talent.
A special screening of Yonfan’s No.7 Cherry Lane was sold out. Hong Kong producers and distributors were seen attending a standing-room-only session featuring Hamaguchi, director of the Oscar-winner Drive My Car (2021), alongside young filmmakers.
“The exchanges throughout the festival were very positive,” Mueller says.
