#feff21

“How do I write?”

Mathew Scott, coordinator of the FEFF Campus

By Jane R. Yao 

On April 16, 2014, many South Korean lives were changed forever. The Sewol ferry disaster stunned the nation as the 6,825-ton ship sunk into darkness taking the lives of more than 300 victims. The man-made disaster, among the worst in South Korea’s modern history, was especially heartbreaking as most of those trapped under water were teenagers.  The captain, Lee Joon-Seok, was acquitted of murder but found guilty of gross negligence for abandoning passengers onboard. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.

The emotional Birthday, written by director Lee Jong-Eon and produced by Lee Chang-Dong (Burning) was chosen as the opening film at the 21st Far East Film Festival in Udine. With its international premiere, this powerful film commemorates the fifth anniversary of the Sewol tragedy.

Four years ago, Lee wrote the script and made a documentary to express her condolences for the families of the Sewol incident. Her debut feature, Birthday focuses on one victim’s family and portrays their journey through the mourning of the loss of their beloved son, Su-Ho. It captures and constructs the sensitive and sentimental emotions after such a tragedy. Su-Ho’s sister Ye-Sol’s grief is intensified as she observes the dramatic changes in her parents. They are simply not able to step out from the dark shadow of their son’s death. As the years pass, they lose their inner compass, and the family begins to fall apart. The film is laced with symbolism showcasing the struggle between hopelessness and helplessness.

Jeon Do-Yeon (Secret Sunshine, directed by Lee Chang-Dong) is excellent as Su-Ho’s mother Soon-Nam, in a performance that exemplifies the sorrow of a mother grieving the loss of her child. In real life, Jeon is both a wife and a mother, and she clearly leans on these experiences in bringing authentic emotion to the role of the victim’s mother. “When I received the script, I wasn’t sure if I [was] going to do it. I observed the whole tragedy in front of me on the TV, and I [couldn’t] do anything but watch, that’s the tragic drama for me,” Jeon shared at Udine. “After I read through the script, I decided to accept it. It’s not just to share the pain of it, but more particularly to look towards the future.”

The film sets Su-Ho's birthday as the destination and Lee weaves in a few narrative hints that lead us to this last sequence. A broken door light that could be Su-Ho returning,  Sol Kyung-gu (Oasis) as Su-Ho’s father Jung-Il finding his son's empty passport and taking it to customs to beg for a stamp in order to fulfill his son’s last wish, and Ye-Sol asking for half a waffle for her brother are some of those hints. Sol portrays the struggle between hopeless and helpless gracefully, particularly when he realises that he wears the same size shoes as his son. It’s an understated and moving performance that displays sensitivity and regret.

The profound final event entirely captures audiences’ sympathies and pushes grief-stricken emotional waves to their peaks. “The last birthday scene wasn't invented. It was shot in the real venue where the victims’ families meet up together on each victim’s birthday, to memorialise them. Every time, the 65 survivors would participate in the event, and express their grief,” director Lee explained. “That scene was only shot twice. The first time it was shot in sequence, while the second time it was shot without any interruption. I wanted to maintain the characters’ emotions. Everyone was in the same rhythm… while we were in the room.”

By Arman Fatic

Finnish-born director Renny Harlin had quite a successful Hollywood career back in the late 1980s and early ’90s, with big action and horror titles such as Die Hard 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street IV, and Cliffhanger.  He then fell off the radar for some time until the relocation of his life and work to China a few years ago.

Now, with Bodies at Rest, the third movie in his Far Eastern career, Harlin is revisiting his testosterone-infused, blood spilling, crime action roots after almost three decades. The reason for this comeback is none other than an unproduced Hollywood script by David Lesser, bought by Wanda Media and then refurbished for Eastern audiences.

The film opens up with neon-lit shot of Hong Kong, and a couple of seconds in it throws us into its soon to be closed location, the morgue. There, the widower pathologist Nick Chan (Nick Cheung) and his sexy-and-smart intern Lynn (Yang Zi) are working the graveyard shift on Christmas Eve. It all looks like another chilling night at work until a jolly gang of loony-for-no-reason Rudolph (Feng Jiayi), no-stomach-for-dirt Elf (Carlos Chan) and no-mercy-all-pride leader Santa (Richie Jen) barge into the morgue and start making trouble. This trio wants to retrieve a bullet from a corpse related to one specific crime, but brave-hearted Nick just can’t let them do that.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, the movie just goes out of its way to try and nail every single good old ‘90s Hollywood movie cliché. Bodies is driven by either glass-shattering physical action scenes, or by all-of-a-sudden twists. There are also a couple of good old-fashioned fantasy flash-forwards/flashback sequences in an attempt to keep viewers off balance as to what is going on and to add a bit more crime mystery and keep them engaged.

For those who won’t be satisfied with just regular lockdown survivor action, Bodies at Rest offers bits and pieces of washed out comedy on the side: the janitor not noticing that all hell broke loose, pathologist openly tells the robbers that the bank is across the street. Cheesy comedy just shows that this is a movie which doesn’t take itself seriously, so it’s really hard to be picky about underdeveloped plotting and random irrational choices that most characters do in this film.

The same can’t be said about the action sequences that can get too quick and chaotic, it is hard to follow what is actually happening. When the movie has so few characters and every single one of them counts, waiting for the dust to settle to know what happened isn’t really satisfying.  In the end, does it even matter? With distribution scheduled for a third quarter of 2019. Bodies at Rest is a solid, forgettable nostalgia flick for all those action movie buffs with nothing better to do during hot summer days.

Il pubblico e gli accreditati Black Dragon hanno incoronato Hong Kong

Al secondo posto la black comedy cinese Dying To Survive e al terzo posto il super blockbuster coreano Extreme Job.

Il FEFF 21 chiude con 60.000 mila spettatori. Oltre 20 mila, invece, le presenze agli eventi in città.

«Noi viviamo dall’altra parte del mondo e avevamo paura che il nostro film non venisse capito. Ma il mondo parla una lingua sola: quella dell’amore...». La giovane attrice Crisel Consunji, emozionata e raggiante, ha commentato così il trionfo hongkonghese di Still Human al Far East Film Festival 21, dividendo il palco e l’ovazione del Teatro Nuovo con la regista Oliver Chan e con il monumentale protagonista Anthony Wong (già premiato con il Gelso d’Oro alla Carriera).

Il pubblico del FEFF 21 non ha avuto dubbi, nel decidere la prima posizione della classifica, e così anche gli accreditati Black Dragon, che hanno hanno assegnato a Still Human il Premio della critica. Al secondo posto si è invece qualificata la black comedy cinese Dying To Survive di Wen Muye e al terzo posto il super blockbuster coreano Extreme Job di Lee Byoung-heon. Il Gelso Bianco per le opere prime, infine, è andato al giapponese Melancholic dell’esordiente Tanaka Seiji, mentre i lettori di MYmovies.it hanno preferito gli ardori ultra pop giapponesi di Fly Me To The Saitama di Takeuchi Hideki.

9 giorni di programmazione. 77 film che raccontano il presente e guardano al futuro. 3 anteprime mondiali – e 14 debutti – che dimostrano la centralità conquistata da Udine sul fronte del mercato cinematografico orientale. Ecco il Far East Film Festival ed ecco, pur con tutti i limiti della sintesi, il bilancio della ventunesima edizione.     

La Via della Seta ha portato al Teatro Nuovo “Giovanni da Udine” e al Cinema Centrale 60 mila spettatori, 200 guest star dall’Asia (tra cui, ricordiamo, tre super divi come Jeon Do-Yeon, Yao Chen, Anthony Wong) e 200 professionisti dell’industria cinematografica orientale ed europea (i sale agent, i buyer, i key-player del workshop internazionale Ties That Bind e del project market Focus Asia).

1600, invece, gli accreditati (giornalisti, docenti, studenti, ambasciatori di altri festival), provenienti da oltre 20 paesi: Italia, Olanda, Slovenia, Regno Unito, Germania, Svezia, Stati Uniti, Francia, Belgio, Svizzera, Cina, Canada, Spagna, Hong Kong, Giappone, Croazia, Ungheria, Polonia, Austria, Norvegia, Corea del Sud, Repubblica Ceca, Brasile, Svezia e Serbia.

Decisamente positivo anche l’impatto del FEFF 21 sulla città, nonostante un meteo tutt’altro che amichevole: il fittissimo programma dei FEFF Events, oltre 100 appuntamenti tra cui l’ormai tradizionale Cosplay Contest, ha fatto registrare oltre 20 mila presenze. Non bisogna, poi, dimenticare l’attivissima social community del festival, che anche quest’anno ha coinvolto migliaia di fan (30 mila solo su Facebook).  

A fronte di tutti i risultati e di tutti gli indicatori di crescita, a fronte di una reputazione internazionale ogni anno più solida e di una notevole ricaduta economica sul territorio, il FEFF continua però a misurarsi con pesantissimi tagli ai finanziamenti pubblici: rispetto al 2018, l’organizzazione ha dovuto costruire il festival con oltre 150 mila euro in meno. E, va da sè, non è pensabile mantenere – proteggere – gli standard acquisiti nell’arco di vent’anni qualora l’emorragia di risorse, risorse appunto vitali, dovesse proseguire. Ora il FEFF resiste, per non dire “fa miracoli”, anche grazie all’indispensabile contributo dei volontari, ma una struttura così complessa, così ramificata, necessita di un altro passo istituzionale per guardare avanti. E avanti, ovviamente, significa la prossima edizione.

FEFF audiences and Black Dragon pass holders crown Hong Kong the winner

In second place, Chinese black comedy Dying to Survive, and in third position Korean blockbuster Extreme Job. FEFF 21 ends with 60,000 attendees, plus over 20,000 visitors to FEFF Events around the city.

"We live on the other side of the world and we were worried that our film wouldn't be understood. But the world speaks a single language: the language of love..." These were the words of excited and radiant young actress Crisel Consunji on the triumph of Hong Kong film Still Human at the Far East Film Festival 21, as she shared the stage and the applause of the Teatro Nuovo with director Oliver Chan and monumental protagonist Anthony Wong (already winner of a Golden Mulberry Award for Outstanding Achievement).

The public were in no doubt about the winner, and neither were the Black Dragon pass holders, who gave Still Human the Critics Award. In second place came Chinese black comedy Dying To Survive, and in third position Korean blockbuster Extreme Job. Finally, the White Mulberry award for First Film went to Melancholic by Japanese newcomer Tanaka Seiji, while readers of MYmovies.it opted instead for another Japanese film, Takeuchi Hideki's Fly Me To Saitama.

9 days. Screenings of 77 films that describe the present and look to the future. 3 world premieres - and 14 first films - that demonstrate the central position Udine has earned itself in the Asian film market. This is the Far East Film Festival and this –  in a slightly reductive form - is the balance sheet of the twenty-first edition.

This year, the Silk Road brought 60,000 spectators, 200 guest stars from Asia (including, let's not forget, superstars Jeon Do-Yeon, Yao Chen and Anthony Wong) and 200 professionals from the Asian and European film industry (sales agents, buyers, key players of the international Ties That Bind workshop and of the Focus Asia project market) to the "Giovanni da Udine" Teatro Nuovo and the Cinema Centrale.

Add to that the 1,600 pass holders (including journalists, teachers, students and ambassadors from other festivals) from over 20 countries: Italy, Holland, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, the United States, France, Belgium, Switzerland, China, Canada , Spain, Hong Kong, Japan, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Norway, South Korea, Czech Republic, Brazil, Sweden and Serbia.

And despite the slightly less-than-inviting weather, FEFF 21 has also had a decidedly positive effect on the city: the packed FEFF Events programme of over 100 events, including the now traditional Cosplay Contest, brought in over 20,000 attendees. And we mustn't forget the festival's extremely active social media community, which once again this year numbered thousands of fans (30,000 on Facebook alone).

But in spite of these results and indicators of growth, and despite an international reputation which each year grows more solid and the festival's significant local economic impact, the FEFF continues to face deep cuts in public funding: this year, the organisation was forced to organise the festival with over 150,000 euros less than in 2018. And it goes without saying that it is impossible to maintain and protect the standards acquired over the last twenty years if this haemorrhaging of vital resources should continue. For the moment, the FEFF is holding out – which is to say, is working miracles - thanks in part to the indispensable commitment of its volunteers. But an event as complex and ramified as the FEFF needs a different kind of institutional approach if it is to look confidently to the future. And the future, of course, means next year's edition.