1st IFFAM to screen 50 local and international movies

The opening ceremony of the first International Film Festival & Awards will take place at Macao Cultural Center on the night of December 8.

The event will open with French ballet drama “Polina”, which stars Anastasia Shevtsova and Juliette Binoche, and was directed by Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj.

The movie which tells the story of a promising classical dancer who travels to Moscow to join the prestigious Bolshoi Ballet, will have its Asian premiere at the festival. The film premiered in France in May of this year.

The six-day IFFAM will screen 50 films from more than 20 countries and regions. This will be the global or Asian premiere for most of the films.

Japanese director Takashi Miike’s “The Mole Song – Hong Kong Capriccio” will have its world gala premiere at the festival, as will Korean director Park Jung Woo’s “Pandora”. The newly restored “Immortal Story”, by Hong Kong director Yonfan, will also be screened at a gala premiere to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its initial release. The film was shot in Macau in 1986.

The Macau festival will screen 11 films in its competition section, including Britain’s “Trespass Against Us,” by Adam Smith starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson; India’s “Gurgaon,” by Shanker Raman; Brazil’s “Elon Doesn’t Believe in Death,” by Ricardo Alves Jr.; Britain’s “Free Fire,” by Ben Wheatley starring Oscar winner Brie Larson; China’s “Hide and Seek,” by Liu Jie; France’s “150 Milligrams,” by Emmanuelle Bercot; Russia’s “Queen of Spades,” by Pavel Lungin; Portugal and France’s “Saint George,” by Marco Martins; Argentina and France’s “The Winter,” by Emiliano Torres; Macau’s “Sisterhood,” by Tracy Choi; and Japan’s “Survival Family,” by Shinobu Yaguchi.

Another Macau film, “Seventeen,” by director Emily Chan, will open the Hidden Dragons sidebar of the festival, which focuses on the latest trends in contemporary Asian genre cinema.

An additional 12 classic titles from Italy, Spain, Britain, France and India were chosen for the Crossfire sidebar by major East Asian directors; including John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Johnnie To, Sono Sion, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Park Chan Wook, Choi Dong Hoon, and Lu Chuan.

Award winning movies from film festivals around the world will be showcased in the Best of Fest Panorama sidebar; such as Pablo Larraín’s “Jackie,” starring Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy, for which Noah Oppenheim won best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival; Olivier Assayas’ “Personal Shopper,” which won the best director award at Cannes Film Festival; and Sundance debuts “Indignation” and “Manchester by the Sea,” by James Schamus and Kenneth Lonergan respectively.

The festival will also shine a light on Taiwanese actress Gwei Lun-mei to hold a three-film retrospective of her work which includes her new film “Forêt Debussy,” in addition to “Secret” (2007), and “The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate” (2011).

Further, Helena de Senna Fernandes noted that the films the organizing committee presented to the press are all confirmed, adding that they are still working towards “other surprises” in the near future.  MDT/Bloomberg