The 18th Pacific Meridian International Film Festival was held in Vladivostok, Russia from 10 – 16 October, despite all the obstacles of the year 2020. The festival showed over 200 movies that comprised the Official Competition, Panorama, Animation, Documentary, Short Competition and other programmes. Some films came from International Film Festivals like Berlin and Venice, whereas others had their international or national premieres in Vladivostok.
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Festival Reports
We receive the usual gift bag from the festival, except that this time, it contains the now indispensable hand sanitizer and mask with the Festival's logo: a golden chestnut leaf. Zofia, the NETPAC Jury assistant, tells me upon arrival that today is the last day that people are allowed to go outdoors without a mask, and that, starting from tomorrow, it has to be worn at all times. I take it off and breathe a sigh of relief for a few hours.
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On September 19, TIFF 2020 officially wrapped up with an in-person screening of Mira Nair's A Suitable Boy at the RBC Lakeside Drive - In at Ontario Place. In an unforgettable year where film festivals were cancelled and film productions were shutdown, TIFF programmers and staff successfully delivered a reimagined virtual festival experience, transporting its programme beyond borders into homes around the world. Inevitably, hybrid/virtual deliveries have become the new paradigms helping film festivals to persist while the world eagerly await for the post-pandemic future to arrive.
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The filmmaker, Carla Pulido Ocampo, was overcome with emotion during the Award Ceremony. She spoke passionately about how her film was meant to combat stereotyping of indigenous values and people, and how much the Awards meant to not just to her, but how she was sure would mean so much to her entire indigenous community which was involved in making Tokwifi.
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The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) - one of the three leading international film festivals in Korea - was held from 9-16 July this year. Although all film festivals in Korea had been cancelled or postponed up to May, BIFAN was held successfully in June on both online and offline venues, with strict social distancing guidelines.
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One of the characteristics of Asian films is that they deal with personal and social issues. Specifically, Asian films focus more on how social and political situations such as war, displacement, and discrimination affect individuals and how individuals respond to such situations. In the case of Korea, more films reflect the bleak social and political conditions in the country, including youth unemployment, women’s plight, family feuds, and the unfair, ruthless system that North Korean defectors and ethnic Korean - Chinese come across in Korea
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This year’s Jeonju International Film Festival (JEONJU) was the first important Asian film event in May (28 May – 6 June). It first attempted to hold the event during its regular dates in April before the spread of COVID-19 but it was not possible. Against all odds, they held the festival the following month with these health precautions: online screening (28 May - 6 June), offline theater screening for juries and film delegates plus market programme (28 May - 2 June). Thereafter, the organisers will hold offline screenings in Jeonju cinema street theaters.
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After an intense two-hour discussion, we agreed to award To Live to Sing by Johnny Ma (Canadian director born in mainland China), a China - France coproduction, and gave it the following citation:
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I have long known about this festival, as it is the main festival for South-east Asian countries, an organization that promotes auteurial, unconventional, original films of young Asian directors who open up new trends in the cinema of their countries and influence the development of film language.
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It is no surprise that the context of film festivals determines the award results because it creates a microenvironment that embodies the spirit and concept of a particular festival and is a perfect place for the reception of the curated films.
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International Women's Day
We are pleased to bring to you, for the second year, our International Women’s Day screening!
Free online screening | 8th March
IWD theme this year is #ChooseToChallenge. A challenged world is an alert world. From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge - Ubolsyn herself completely embraces the theme!
This year we invite you to a special free online screening of ULBOLSYN from director Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Our sincere thanks to the producers, Guillaume de Seille and Olga Khlasheva, for their generosity and their efforts in facilitating the screening.
The film tells the story of a girl named Ulbolsyn (Kazakh for ‘let there be a son’) whose little sister Azhar is kidnapped by the regional mayor’s brother Urgen for marital purposes and taken away to his village. Ulbolsyn wants her sister to be free and to enter her into a foreign university so that she can pursue a future career. As soon as she learns about the incident, Ulbolsyn decides to fight for her sister and face down the patriarchal world of the people living in the Karatas village.
The film is the recipient of the NETPAC Award in Tallinn Black Nights and TRT award in CineLink Sarajevo WIP 2020