From 4th to 31st October 2019

In the current edition of the Asian Film Festival Barcelona, the program is not strictly bound to the usual dates but are extended from the 4^th of October to the 31^st of the same month. During this month CaixaForum will be once again a headquarter of the festival accepting an important part of the Off-festival, with a double program consisting of a Meeting with Iranian film and a selection of 25 short films from the Philippines, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kirguistan, Macau, Pakistan, Tayikistan and Vietnam. The Meeting consists of nine films produced during 2017 and 2019 in collaboration with the Farabi Foundation from Tehran and the distributor Iranian Independents. These films will be screened in the auditorium and within the same dates in Aula 0 a selection of short and medium films from 2018 and 2019 for the first time. Cinemes Girona will keep being the main headquarters of the AFFBCN 2019 but will also collaborate with the OFF-FESTIVAL with four films produced in 2018 from Afghanistan, Australia, Japan and Mongolia which will be shown every Saturday from the 5^th to the 26^th October. Lastly, B the Travel Brand Xperience will be, for the first time, an additional headquarter with a program consisting of six documentaries produced from 2018 and 2019 in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan and Laos starting on October 7^th.

MEETING WITH IRANIAN FILM

From the 4th to the 31st of October 2019 | CaixaForum (Auditori)

– Download here the complete info –

For years, Iranian cinema has been one of the most awarded cinematographies at the international film festivals. In the last decade, the recognitions have been multiplying at the same pace as new titles have been appearing coming from the current generations of directors formed in Iran. Names like Monir Gheydi, Roqiye Tavakoli, Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian, Ebrahim Mokhtari, Mohammad Hamzei, Sadeq Sadeq Daqiqi, Hosein Namazi (Official Section’s Best Screenplay Award at the AFFBCN 2018 for Appendix), Hamid Reza (Panorama Section’s Audience Award and Best Director Award at the AFFBCN 2017 for A House of 41st Street), Gholamreza Sagharchiyan (Best Screenplay Award by the AFFBCN 2017’s Youth Jury for Houra) and Ramin Rasuli, among others, belonging to the younger generations which maintain the pulse of those filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Dariush Mehrjui, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Maryam Keshavarz, Reza Mirkarimi or Asghar Farhadi who consecrated Iranian cinema, to which they gave its own and unmistakable identity. CASA ASIA aims to continue contributing to the dissemination of this cinema, taking into account the different narratives which are transmitted and the personality of a cinematography whose success results to a large extend from the strength of the corresponding scripts. Iranian cinema is a cinema which mimics theatre in a certain way, due to the importance that it gives to orality. With their speech, the main characters amplify the locations and the chain of events, in a way that the moving image enhances everything that is narrated. The conflict always resides at the origin of this particularly dramatic cinema, dealing with everyday events and which reveals the domestic life’s “insides” of a country of which we known little. CASA ASIA programs at CaixaForum an anthology of the most recent Iranian cinema, with the collaboration of the Farabi Foundation and the independent Iranian film distributor directed by Mohammad Attebai, for the next edition of the Asian Film Festival Barcelona | AFFBCN 2019 with a dozen new titles from this country.

Footwork | Mazdak Mirabedini | Iran | 2017 | 81’ | Drama | VOSE | Official Section

Wild Jonquils | Rahbar Ghanbari | Iran | 2017 | 83’| Children’s, Drama | VOSE | NETPAC Section

Yeva | Anahid Abad | Iran, Armenia | 2017 | 94’ | Drama | VOSE | Discoveries Section

First Autograph for Rana | Ali Zhakan | Iran | 2018 | 90’ | Drama | VOSE | Discoveries Section

Astigmatism | Majid-Reza Mostafavi | Iran | 2018 | 85’ | Drama | VOSE | Special Section

Orange Days | Arash Lahooti | Iran | 2018 | 102’ | Drama | VOSE | Official Panorama Section

Orduckly | Behrouz Gharib Pour | Iran | 2018| 86’ | Drama | VOSE | Official Panorama Section

The Dark Room | Rouhollah Hejazi | Iran | 2018| 101’ | Drama | VOSE | Official Panorama Section

Pastarioni | Soheil Movafagh | Iran | 2019 | 97’ | Family, Children’s | VOSE | NETPAC Section

INTRODUCING THE FESTIVAL

From the 5^th to the 26^th of October 2019 | Cinemes Girona

– Download here the complete info –

The four films listed below, which will be screened at Cinemes Girona, are part of the OFF-Festival program launched the 4^th of October at Caixa Forum. These films are RocKabul (Afghanistan, 2018), competing in the Official Panorama Section as well as Broken (Australia, 2018); Call for Dreams (Japan, 2018), from the NETPAC Section, and Insane Mother (Mongolia, 2018), Discoveries Section. Throughout the month of October, Casa Asia’s film program will meet under the OFF-Festival coverage, as an introduction to the Asian Film Festival Barcelona, to be held between the 30^th of October and the 10^th of November. The chosen films meet the criteria followed by the more than 130 films competing this year in the various festival sections. Each one of them stands out for their narrative value and the visual strategy which they employ from a differentiated aesthetic perspective. Overall, it is a small sample of what is to come with the Asian Film Festival Barcelona, ​​where more than twenty nationalities will meet and contribute to create a mosaic through which the public will be able to travel across a continent without leaving the movie theatre.

RocKabul | Travis Beard | Afghanistan | 2018 | 77’ | Documentary / Music / War | VOSE | Oficial Panorama Section

Broken | Tarry Mortlock | Australia | 2018 | 97’ | Drama / Crime | VOSE | Oficial Panorama Section

Call for Dreams | Ran Slavin | Japan | 2018 | 83’ | Crime / Drama / Mystery | VOSE | NETPAC Section

Insane Mother | Ishdorj Odonchimeg | Mongolia | 2018 | 105’ | Drama | VOSE | Discoveries Section

DOCUMENTARIES

From the 7^th of October to the 11^th of November 2019 | B The Travel Brand Xperience

– Download here the complete info –

As a part of what is known as the OFF-FESTIVAL, B The Travel Brand Xperience will become this year for the first time a venue for the Asian Film Festival Barcelona | AFFBCN 2019 holding the screening of six documentaries which are also competing in the different sections of the festival. These productions will be presented by CASA ASIA and will be followed by a colloquium. The films selected deal with different issues ultimately related to the lives of the inhabitants of the production’s countries. Therefore, through the moving image they are able to create a window to places which we do not usually have access to. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan and Laos are the protagonists of these documentaries, and also allow us to address different aspects of the daily life of these countries from diverse perspectives, inviting us to discover places, communities, individuals and circumstances which are finally complementary and which contribute to the acknowledge the situations they attempt to address.

A Thousand Girls Like Me | Sahra Mani | Afghanistan | 2018 | 76’ | Documentary | VOSE | Official Section

Hasina: A Daugther’s Tale | Rezaur Rahman Khan Piplu | Bangladesh | 2018 | 72′ | Documentary / Drama | VOSE | Special Section

When I Grow Up (Grandir) | Jill Coulon | Cambodia / Laos / Vietnam / Myanmar / Thailand / Indonesia / France | 2018 | 54’ | Documentary | VOSE | Special Section

The Song of the Grassroots | Yuda Kurniawan | Indonesia | 2018 | 107’ | Documentary | VOSE | Special Section

Portraits of a Rainbow | Ayumi Nakagawa | Japan | 2018 | 79’ | Documentary | VOSE | Special Section

This Little Land of Mines | Erin McGoff | Laos | 2018 | 64’ | Documentary / Drama / News | VOSE | Special Section

SHORT FILMS

From the 11th to the 26th of October 2019 | CaixaForum (Aula 0)

– Download here the complete info –

As a part of what is known as the OFF-FESTIVAL, CaixaForum becomes this year a venue for the Asian Film Festival Barcelona | AFFBCN 2019 to host a selection of twenty-three short films which will be screened from the 11^th to the 26^th of October. These productions are from Philippines, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Vietnam. Some of these shorts are practically medium-length fiction films or close to the documentary genre. However, in any case, all of them are directed by young filmmakers whom are in the process to create their first feature films and, consequently, these short film become exercises of great interest to which we want to give visibility. Hosting these screenings, CaixaForum’s Aula 0 aims to offer the public, at any time of the indicated days, the possibility of being able to watch these films.

Friday the 11^th of October and Saturday the 19^th of October (Loop)

Saturday the 12^th of October and Sunday the 20^th of October (Loop)

Sunday the 13^th of October and Friday the 25^th of October (Loop)

Friday the 18^th of October and Saturday the 26^th of October (Loop)

* All these short films will be screened in original version with Spanish subtitles (VOSE)..

Casa Asia collaborates for the second time with the BCN Sports Film | Barcelona International Ficts Festival (2019), sharing a part of its program dedicated to the festival’s theme relating to South East Asian cinematography. It deals with a full-length film from South Korea about the past Winter Olympics thanks to which new relations between the two Korean nations were initiated, bringing closer strategies and setting the basis for a new phase. Within the framework of the collaboration, there are a number of short films which need to be taken into account, most of them filmed in Japan, which have been put together in the Ganbaru Section – 頑張る, dedicated to the culture of effort in Japan sports. It will be concluded with a Kendo demonstration, a Japanese origin martial art, which will be offered to the general public on Wednesday, 5^th of June.

PROGRAMMING

Wednesday 5^th of june, 19h

Museu Olímpic i de l’Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch

Ganbaru – 頑張る. Effort culture in Japanese sport.

In Japanese culture, effort, respect for tradition and its symbiosis with modernity are inseparable. Under this title, a series of short films are put together showing us the strength of these values through sumo, baseball, athletics and climbing:

LITTLE MISS SUMO | United Kingdom, United States and Japan | 2018 | 18’

Hiyory, a women’s sumo champion, faces obstacles as much from the inside as from the outside of the ring when trying to permanently modify some aspects of the Japan’s national sport.

DEAD RUN | Japan | 2018 | 10′

Hana is a part of the athletics team. To forget repressed feelings about her parents, her best friend and their love story, she runs. The passion for running is what allows her to keep moving on.

STUD | United States | 2017 | 12’47’

A 14 year old kid, pressured by everyone’s expectations around him and his dream of becoming a sports star, he suffers the pressures of baseball in competition.

MITAKA SUMO SCHOOL | Catalunya | 2017 | 8′

At Mitaka Sumo School, situated a few kilometers away from Tokyo, kids learn sumo: a thousand year old sport with essential values, like respect and nonviolence.

REEL ROCK 13: UP TO SPEED | United States | 2018 | 20’35”

When it was announced that the sporting practice known as climbing would be a part of the 2020 Olympic Games, many climbers were surprised on knowing that one of the three categories in which they would be competing in to earn an Olympic medal would be fast climbing. Zachary Barr, REEL ROCK’s correspondent, analyzes this sub-discipline and its role on the future of climbing.

Club members of Associació Catalana de Kendo (ACKEN), Associació Esportiva Renshinkan, Club de Kendo de Ryoshinkai and Club de Kendo UPC will offer us a demonstration of Kendo, the Japanese origin martial art.

Thursday 6^th of june, 19h

MUSEU I CENTRE D’ESTUDIS DE L’ESPORT DR. MELCIOR COLET

CROSSING BEYOND | South Korea | 2018 | 100′

Official Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018 film.

Accompanied by the acclaimed documentalist Yi Seung-jin, we discover how the Olympic values overcome boundaries. Five competitions, one ambition: this is the story of five young athletics forced to face personal, social, political and geographical limitations and barriers. Yi Seung-jun captures the Olympic spirit and soul of this Olympic Games edition, setting out important questions about sport’s value beyond the podium.

KENDO DEMONSTRATION AND SHORT

Date and schedule: Wednesday, 5^th  of june of 2019, at 19h.

Free entrance until full capacity. No registration required.

Place: Museu Olímpic i de l’Esport Joan Antoni Samaranch

Avinguda de l’Estadi, 60, 08038 Barcelona

DOCUMENTARY SCREENING

Date and schedule: thursday, 6^th of june of 2019, at 19h.

Free entrance until full capacity. No registration required.

Place: Museu i Centre d’Estudis de l’Esport Dr. Melcior Colet

Carrer de Buenos Aires, 56, 08036 Barcelona

Casa Asia collaborates one more year with the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival of Barcelona Fire !! programming the East of Eden cycle with three titles of the current Asian film scene, which coincide in the need to publicize the problems of LGBT communities, which are sometimes hidden or deliberately ignored.

We will begin the journey of this collaboration in a country like Japan. Portraits of the Rainbow (2018), the first film, will reveal the story of Leslie Kee and her photographic project with the aim of portraying ten thousand LGBTQ people. We will travel to Vietnam with the beautiful Song Lang (2018), a love story built from the fatality that feeds on the narrative of the classic Vietnamese opera. Finally, we will also go to Australia to relive one of the key moments for the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1975, with the magnificent film Riot (2018).

PROGRAMMING

Thursday, May 30, 2019, 8 pm at Cinemes Girona

Portraits of the Rainbow | Japan | Dir. Ayumi Nakagawa | 2018 | 79 ‘| VOSE

The famous photographer Leslie Kee is mostly known for his fashion photographs and portraits of celebrities such as Madonna. He works all over the world and has been living in Japan for 25 years, a country that knows a boom in the movement for LGBTQ rights, although there are many who must continue to keep his sexual orientation hidden there. Leslie himself, being gay, can not tell his family, who resides in Singapore. Even so, he embarks on an ambitious project to photograph ten thousand LGBTQ people, in order to make the exhibition Out in Japan. The first time, in the conservative Japanese city of Nara, there is little assistance, but Leslie continues to make portraits.

The filmmaker Ayumi Nakagawa followed this photographer for a year, while making the first thousand portraits. It focused on the lives of four people: a couple of women who were trying to be mothers, an advocate for people with HIV and a transgender man who was grieving after his partner’s suicide. Along the way, Leslie himself was transforming little by little too, thanks to this moving experience.

Friday, May 31, 2019, 20.00 at Cinemes Girona

Song Lang | Vietnam | Leon Le | 2018 | 90 ‘| VOSE

Saigon, in the 1980s. Linh Phung is the star of an itinerant company of cai luong (traditional folk opera) and is heavily indebted to a lender called Dung, El Rayo. Despite apparently having nothing in common, the two engage in a game playing a video game and discover that they have similar minds and many points of connection. Linh Phung knows that a well-lived life is necessary for his art and Dung yearns for art to return to a life more worthy of being lived. History, rooted in fatalism and fatality, is inspired by the classical narrative structure of Vietnamese opera.

Born and raised in Saigon, Leon moved to the United States as a teenager and is a dancer, singer and actor. Song Lang, his first feature film, can be considered a very mature work, resulting from personal experience committed to his vocation, uniting his sensitivity as a photographer and actor.

Thursday, June 13, 2019, 22.0 0h in French Institute

Sunday, June 16, 2019, 8:00 pm at the French Institute

Riot | Australia | Dir. Jeffrey Walker | 2018 | 105 ‘| VOSE

In 1978, when the urge to decriminalize homosexuality in Australia had stalled, a group of activists decided that they should make a last attempt to celebrate who they are. Led by a former union leader, Lance Gowland, they obtain a permit from the police and spread the word. On a cold winter night, they disguise themselves, shake hands and parade down Oxford Street. But, they completely ignore that the police, furious, are on the lookout, and the courage they find that night will finally mobilize the whole country.

Riot sheds a revealing light on the movement for gay and lesbian rights in Australia and makes us relive the enthusiasm of people who, despite their enormous daily difficulties, managed to celebrate diversity at a key moment in the history of the LGBTQ community .

Date

30 / 05/2020> 06/16/2020

Schedule

From May 30 to June 16, 2019.

Place

Girona Girona

c / Girona, 175

Barcelona

French Institute

Moià 8

Barcelona

Entrance

General entry: 6 euros | Price paid and partners of the Cinemes Girona: 5 euros | French Institute entrance: 5.36 euros

Organizer

Casa Asia | French Institute | Cinemes Girona | International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival of Barcelona Fire !!, with the collaboration of Cinhomo and Fundación Triangle Castilla y León