(This press release is sent by Cultural Connections on behalf of HKADC.)
Turning a New Page of the City
Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival
Taiwan Master and Young Overseas Filmmakers to Visit Hong Kong
(10 November, 2014) “Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival”, organised by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), will be held from 5 to 19 December at the Broadway Cinematheque. The 15-day Festival comprises 32 screenings of 64 short films, including 37 entries from the Local Competition Section and 21 entries from overseas (shorts from International Association of Film and Television Schools CILECT, as well as outstanding short films from Hangzhou Asian Film Festival and The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany). On top of these, works from Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition 2014 Hong Kong Exhibition and “Tricycle Thief” from Toronto International Film Festival will be shown, which adds extra flavour to the festival.
The Festival has invited renowned Taiwan director Yee Chih-yen to officiate the opening ceremony, bringing his latest work “Meeting Dr. Sun” to the Festival. Five young overseas directors will be visiting Hong Kong to meet the audience and exchange with their Hong Kong counterparts. Tickets will be available from today (10 November) onwards. In promoting of local production, ticket price is greatly reduced to HKD45.
At the “Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival” Press Preview held today at Agnes b. Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre, HKADC announced the programme details. To mark the occasion, “Exclusively On Air”, the latest work directed by Mr. Yim Sheung-man, Sean, winner of Fresh Wave Award 2013, with the sponsorship of Canon (Hong Kong), was premiered. “Exclusively On Air” is listed as one of the shorts in the official programme of the Festival.
HKADC launched the Fresh Wave Short Film Competition in 2005 to nurture aspiring young filmmakers and to provide them with a platform of learning, creating and showcasing. The scheme evolved to become the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival in 2010, providing more screening opportunities and cultural exchanges, and has since become an annual focus for young film talents in the territory. The numbers of applicants and the quality of the short films have been on the rise. Many of the titles have been nominated for showcases in overseas film festivals.
A Showcase of Local Creativity and Vision with 37 Shorts by Young Directors
37 shorts in the Local Competition Section of “Fresh Wave 2014” are divided into the Student and Open Divisions. Those in the Student Division are recommended by tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Each participating team receives a subsidy to make a short film within 30 minutes in six months. The organiser has assigned to each team a mentor who is a film veteran, to enhance their knowledge and skills in filmmaking and to share with them practical experience. Mentors of the current edition of Fresh Wave include: Herman Yau, Gypsy Chang, Mable Cheung, Chan Hing-kai, Yau Nai-hoi, Benny Chan, Fruit Chan, Honkaz Fung, Laurence Lau, Jimmy Choi, Alex Lai, Ying Liang, Alex Law and Jessey Tsang.
Semi-final adjudicators include film critics Kwok Tsz-ki, Guo Zhen and Dunet Chan. While the chief adjudication panel, it has Lee Daw-ming, professor of Taipei National University of the Arts School of Filmmaking and New Media, Geoffrey Gilmore, Director of USA Tribeca Film Festival, as well as Yank Wong, renowned screenwriter and art director from Hong Kong. The award-winning films will be announced at the Closing Ceremony cum Award Gala of the Festival on 19 December.
Famous Taiwan Director Yee Chih-yen and Young Filmmakers from around the Globe
The opening ceremony of “Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival” will take place at the Broadway Cinematheque on 5 December, 2014 with Taiwan director Yee Chih-yen as the officiating guest. He is popular among moviegoers for his depiction of struggles of youngsters. His “Blue Gate Crossing” (2002) not only turned Gwei Lun-mei and Bolin Chen into everyone’s sweethearts but also developed his original style of coming-of-age genre. Yee will attend the “Master Class: Yee Chih-yen” on 6 December to share his insights with local young filmmakers.
This years’ Fresh Wave also features 21 shorts by young directors from all over the world, with films carefully selected from CILECT (International Association of Film and Television Schools), Hangzhou Asian Film Festival and The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany. Five directors are to be invited to Hong Kong to attend the Festival: Johann Dulat (“Breathless”, France) Nima Mohaghegh (“Sacred Defence”, Holland), Ma Xiang (“The Hooligan”, Mainland China), Kai Maria Steinkühler (“Wave Riders”, Germany), and Maxim Bessmentny (“Tricycle Thief”, Macau). Apart from post-screening sharing sessions, they will also attend the “Film Cultural Exchange” on 18 December to exchange with their local counterparts and meet with the audience during the screening of their works.
37 Competition Shorts Depicting Hong Kong through Different Lenses
“Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival” spans across 15 days with 64 short films from locally and overseas. 37 local competition shorts cover a wide range of genres: social issues, local sentiment, young people’s coming-of-age, and their quest for dreams, etc.
| Theme | Shorts | Section | Synopsis |
| Social IssuesDemonstration, Political Struggle, Development of the North East, New Immigrants, Monster Parents… | Being Rain: Representation and Will | Open | A mysterious organisation is suspected to secretly control the weather which dampens the mood and suppresses the intention of the public to participate in social movements. |
| Silence of the Man | Open | A mysterious yet fatal epidemic transmitted through conversations, in b&w the director depicts the current situation in a magical realistic way. | |
| 17 Years After | Student | Secondary school student is charged for participating in social movement, and eventually suspended without investigation. The suspension, indeed, has nothing to do with teaching or guidance, but solely political correctness and administration issue. | |
| Homeland | Student | The story takes place in the near future when the North East New Territories New Development Plan soon starts, with a few residents still reluctant to leave their home. Old granny who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease still refuses to abandon his home. | |
| A Nice Village | Student | This “nice” Tung San Village is said to be living in the safest place in Hong Kong protected by a “force field”. People are actually exploited and under surveillance. Now, a revolution is on the way. | |
| Food Fascist | Open | A reflection on the general public’s food-obsessed culture and celebrity worship, this feature also highlights human’s decadence and corrupt excess through the aesthetics of food. | |
| Upon Hatred | Open | A story about two men, restaurant owner and his timid newest employee, who live in an unforgiving city, both trying to find their way out but ended up hurting each other. | |
| The Drifter | Student | Sze-man, hiding her secret of being a cross-boundary student is facing a dilemma when she participates in an inter-school debate, which leads her to stand on the negative side for “Hong Kong Government should allow Mainlanders to settle down in Hong Kong”. | |
| Hong Kong’s Weepie | Open | “Monster parents” would do whatever they could to secure their child a better future. | |
| Neighbours | Student | Mainland student found a male corpse in her neighbouring apartment on the third day of her arrival. Being hungry and helpless, she locks up herself in the flat and acts strangely. | |
| Local Upcoming and Veteran actors | Chuen Lau | Open | A tattooist who works for the triad and put tattoos on betrayers as punishment, and his best friend, a boxer, the middle aged experience a desperate period in their lives.Cast: Chin Siu-ho (“Rigor Motis”, 2013) |
| Goldberg Variations | Open | Johann Bach’s Goldberg Variations brings the two lonely and unrelated people in the film – an inconspicuous mid-aged man and a once popular actress closer.Cast: Cheuk Wan Chi, Leung Cho Yiu | |
| Leave Them High and Dry | Open | A realistic piece on struggles of SEN students and their parents. Veteran TV actress Lau Yuk Tsui plays the role of a SEN student. | |
| Charlatan | Open | As a con man who actually takes professional pride in his work as a psychic scam artist, Man Chun was just released from prison. He reconnects with his master and continues with the old trade.The most loved TV villain actor Kwok Fung plays the psychic scam master. | |
| Other works which feature veteran local actors:Sam Leung (“Tricycle Thief”), Ai Wai (“Exclusively On Air”), Chin Siu-ho (“Rest is Pending”), Deon Cheung (“17 Years After”) | |||
| Local Sentiments | The Sea Within | Open | As a child of fishermen, the director talks about a story of ordinary fishermen couple who has been through ups and downs. |
| Until Now What We Are | Open | An old suitcase in a disappearing community. There are people and places that we used to hold dear in our hearts and gradually became sediments of buried memories. | |
| The True Colour of Emptiness | Open | Tao, a thirty-something stuck in life, gets a jolt to the status quo when he comes back to Hong Kong. In the strange yet familiar old places, he meets some strangers whose presences overlapped in the present reality, his dreams and in the past. | |
| Malinois’ Gaze | Open | Facing the four walls of a gallery, pompous art works and visitors who break the rules, an old security guard falls into a hypnotic trance at times. One night, a sobbing policewoman comes to search for her missing Malinois. Is the world still in order? | |
| The Stars The Sun The Moon | Open | On a random night of summer 1998, two good friends travel through time to 15 years ahead by pure happenstance. Wandering in the same neighbourhood where they were still growing up, they discover changes in their friends and loved ones – some of which are inevitable. | |
| Youth | iPhone Thieves | Open | Young thief destined for doom, and probably will never find redemption and a way out. |
| Doting | Student | A story of love, hate, bullying and murder, all happening in a secondary school. | |
| The Lost | Student | 15-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl get lost in the wood to search for a future. | |
| Someday We’ll Know | Open | The swimming team is deflated after captain drowned to death. Reserve member of the team eventually finds out the painful secret of growing up. | |
| Last Smile | Student | Young dancer is good at fooling around, until he is revealed to have leukemia after a compulsory blood test originally for drug abuse.The cure he seeks, however, is not medical help, but a happy ending. | |
| A Band Apart | Open | A band of four barely making ends meet. With their backs against the wall, they come across a wedding invitation from the bitchy landlord who raises the rent on them. They plan to steal the gift envelopes at the wedding banquet. Little did they know that they were not the only ones setting their sights on the money. | |
| Searching for “Totoru” | Student | The three youngsters, Kiki, Sun and Bun have been friends since they were kids and they all love artist Mr Miyazaki’s works. Their situations and friendship change as they grow up and encounter various issues in real life. | |
| Yellow Everything | Open | Call Mo obsessively neurotic or just sentimental, but he just wants to pursue the perfect colour yellow. He appears to be impervious to emotions except when he encounters yellow objects. | |
| Voice Behind | Student | Two strangers move into neighbouring units with thin walls in an old tenement building. Finding each other noisy and annoying, they eventually have chat with and encourage each other through the thin wall. | |
| Autonomy on Creativity | Ghostless Horror | Student | Fresh director persuades the boss to invest in his horror, but there is one “little” requirement – in order to pass the Mainland censorship, no ghost can be presented in the ghost story. So keen to make it work, Chun compromises to change the script, when an unexpected visitor shows up. |
| Family Issues | Marryland | Open | Trapped in a surreal space, all females need to get married in order to leave. |
| Life Goes On | Student | Suddenly becoming widowed, father wears two hats at home as father and mother, exhaustedly juggling to balance work, family and fitting into his new position. | |
| Sci-Fic | Trial and Error | Open | In a futuristic world, suicide programme H237 attempts to escape from desperation, is pushed to limit by its operator. |
| Disconnected | Student | In 2049 when every citizen has to wear a pair of smart glasses as identity, one of them loses his glasses, memory, survival techniques and gets disconnected from the remote communication system. At this chaotic moment, he hops on the memory train of 2046, reconstructing his memories and imagination for the city. | |
| Vampire’s Love | Open | When affections run dry, lovers evolve to “tear apart” each other like animals in a coliseum. People keep on “hunting” until a new prey in form of a “lover” is found. | |
| Romance | The Stranger | Open | Relationships with strangers can exist in all forms, including the most intimate ones which defy conventions and explanations. Physical contacts do not turn into lust, but rather the senses’ primitive explorations of each other not unlike animals in nature. |
| The Summer Triangle | Student | Young gay couple with a female friend between them. The three go on a stargazing trip in summer with love and conflict. | |
| The Glass City | Student | Woman cannot recover from her sorrow at her fiancé’s death. Deeply depressed, she resists taking her medication and suffers from frequent hallucinations. Even with a guardian angel by her side, no one could stop tragedy from happening. | |
27 Special Screening Shorts:
This year the Festival will be showing shorts from over the world, with five of the directors visiting Hong Kong together with their work, including Best Foreign (Silver) award winning short of Student Academy Awards 2014.
| Foreign Film Festival/ Organisation | Title | Synopsis |
| The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen | Wave Riders | Unemployed buddies agree to run rival ice cream booths on the beach for their friend, but soon discover that competition isn’t always the best way to drive business growth. Blending surreal humour with stark black & white photography and satirical economics. |
| International Association of Film and Television Schools CILECT | Sacred Defense | Set during the Iran-Iraq war, Reza has proved himself an inspirational leader until the day when his 13-year-old son, the last surviving member of his family, volunteers to fight. Suddenly Reza can understand the futility of war, but is it too late to sway the influence of his fanaticism? |
| International Association of Film and Television Schools CILECT | Breathless | Young Frenchman Antoine utilises his supernatural power of time-manipulation to sleep with many women, until he meets Alice, everything changes. He uses his powers less and less frequently. And that realisation scares him.Nominee for 41st Student Academy Award |
| Hangzhou Asian Film Festival | The Hooligan | 10-year-old Xiaofei moves to a new school where he immediately develops a crush on a 30-year-old female teacher. Despite having an older friend to help him, the eccentric young hooligan is unable to win her love, instead developing an increasingly bad reputation for himself. |
| Toronto International Film Festival | Tricycle Thief | Behind the colour-saturated affluence of the city are darkest back streets full of poverty and insecurity. A cautionary tale of a one-night rendezvous of a tricycle driver which pictures the struggle of a nobody in a great era.*Nominee of Toronto International Film Festival |
Fresh Wave 2014 for the first time in history is introducing special screenings for local shorts. Directed by Hong Kong young talents, works include “Exclusively On Air”, the sponsored latest work of Fresh Wave Award 2013 winner, and four selected shorts from Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition 2014 Hong Kong Exhibition.
| Category | Title | Director | Synopsis |
| Fresh Wave Award 2013 winner | Exclusively On Air | Yim Sheung-man, Sean | Based on a true event, when independence of news is no longer valid, how would journalism end up? |
| Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition 2014 Hong Kong Exhibition | Resting is Pending | Ng Ho-yin | Cemeteries are ubiquitous in Hong Kong, but columbaria are still ironically in lack. Traveling through cities, we see cultures, environments and interactions between demand and supply. |
| Over the Wall | Tsim Ho-tat | The wall marks the boundary of Reclamation Street, but will it bring harmony between old and new, or does it simply serve as a test point? The film is about supersession, communication, conflicts and dispute, all reflecting our own reality. | |
| Connection | Wong Siu-pong | The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link and Hong Kong-Shenzhen Western Corridor connect people’s lives and work within the Pearl River Delta region. With new roads and rails linking more and more places, how will it affect the lives of a family crossing three generations? | |
| Dance Me to the End of Youth | Mak Hei-yan, Heiward | In a neighbourhood full of hope and ambition that contrast with their long lost youth, in such barren place thirsting for development that contradicts their senility, two lonely widowed hearts encounter, long for prosperity that they might never see, and reignite the once buried desires. |
More foreign shorts as follows：
| Film Festival/ Organisation | Title | Synopsis |
| Hangzhou Asian Film Festival | The Time to Live and the Time to Die | Ying reminisces about the summer of 1999, when she was 13 taking care of her ailing grandmother. It was when she encountered Ma Yi, a young motorbiker who leapt over the wall into her garden. Ma Yi was involved with the housewife next door, and far too old for a relationship with Ying.*Winner of Best Fiction and Female Director Pioneer Award of the 11th Vision Youth Awards |
| International Association of Film and Television Schools CILECT | Red Stains | While “Red Stains” examines children’s relationship to firearms, which in turn reflects on parental responsibility, the film is more concerned with more wide-reaching themes including courage, fear, shame, guilt and knowing when it’s time to admit your mistakes and come clean. |
| The Celebration | On the eve of her 100th birthday, Valeria is still more than capable of looking after herself. As a bleak snapshot of modern day Slovakia, the director paints a cynical picture of the younger generations treating their elderly relatives more as a burden than a formidable survivor. | |
| Border Patrol | Two German-Austria border police officials choose between tonight’s big game and a dead body hanging in the woods. | |
| Where To | A lyrical and optimistic examination of life and death from Slovenia. Two women from different generations find themselves burdened with each other’s company, only to find a rare moment of escape and happiness as they are finally liberated of their inhibitions.*Nominee of 41st Student Academy Award – Best Foreign Film | |
| Bistro Caprice | A 3-minute love letter to a medium on the brink of extinction, but told in a boldly cinematic way, as if to suggest that cinema has overtaken literature as the storytelling medium today. | |
| Jiminy | In the near future, technology has evolved allowing our thoughts and actions to be controlled by external forces. But without free will, will people surrender the very thing that makes him human? | |
| The Way of All Flesh | Tibo, a male nurse at a palliative care home swap shifts and accompany the racist, lecherous Franz on the last day of his life, Tibo’s initial reluctance fades as both men recognise the opportunity for a cathartic moment of redemption and closure during their brief time together. | |
| The Other Pair | A beautiful short reveals to us that preconceptions can be as dangerous as ignorance, and we should never jump to conclusions when it comes to humanity’s ability for compassion. | |
| Ebb and Flow | Rodrigo is a single man living in the favelas of Brazil. Hindered by deafness, he still manages to carve out a meagre living for himself repairing car stereos, enough to feed and clothe his young daughter, and dance to the rhythm. | |
| Seagulls | The realms of fiction and reality are repeatedly blurred in this story of Judith, a struggling actress, simultaneously filming an indie feature film while rehearsing for an upcoming stage play. By the camera drifting through Judith’s sleep-deprived world, audiences could appreciate the natural beauty inherent in the carnival of artistic expression and creativity. | |
| Paris on the Water | Batya was once an incredibly famous leading lady in the Israeli film industry, but old age and ill health have crept in and the roles have disappeared.* Best Foreign Film (Silver) Award of 41st Student Academy Award | |
| Placebo | Aron and Theo are a pair of adolescent cancer patients, sharing a hotel room. As both struggle to embrace their tragic fate, the boys’ camaraderie slowly begins to sour. | |
| Sunny | Unemployed, broke and never far from trouble, Hajo must somehow provide for his infant son, Sunny, as well as stay on the good side of Su, the baby’s mother.*Winner of Best Leading Actor of multiple German independent film awards | |
| The Father | In a remote region of the Caucasus Mountains, an old father fighting for justice in his son’s trial, a story of power struggle of an egg in front of the great wall | |
| Age 17 | In an Italian small town, 17-year old boy is falling for his band leader and local priest. | |
| Escort | Embittered driver heads out to work – chauffeuring an attractive, seasoned prostitute around town between her various clients. |
For screening schedule and post-screening sharing sessions, please refer to the festival’s official publications.
Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival At a Glance
| Date | Programme | Venue |
| 5 -19 Dec | “Fresh Wave 2014 – International Short Film Festival” Opening Film: “Dear Mr. Sun” by Yee Chih-yinShort Films: 64 shorts in 15 themes including 37 from the Local Competition Section and 21 selected titles by overseas young directors*Tickets available from 6 November | Broadway Cinematheque |
| 6 Dec | Master Class: Yee Chih-yin*Limited seats. Reservation required (2820 1081 / info@freshwave.hk) | Broadway Cinematheque |
| 18 Dec | Film Cultural Exchange5 young directors from overseas will have dialogue with their local counterparts on filmmaking experience. | HKADC |
Website:
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/freshwavehk
Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/freshwavefestival
Ticketing Enquiry:
2388 0002 (Broadway Circuit)
Programme Enquiry:
2827 8786 (HKADC, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.)
Download High Res. Poster: http://goo.gl/FR5Pn1
Download Film Stills: http://goo.gl/QotXVO
Appendix: Photos from Press Preview
For more high res photos: http://goo.gl/xRDDxD
