News Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Film Series “China: 5 Perspectives of Women”

21/05/2019/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Casa Asia collaborates with Fundació Institut Confuci de Barcelona in this series devoted to 5 female Chinese directors that have directed some of the most important films made in China since 2007 to 2017. Interest in this series is obvious given the sensitivity of the authors, who are not unique in their country, but are among the most representative such as Ann Hui, Xu Jinglei or Vivian Qu.

Films like Buddha Mountain by Li Yu, Ella, una joven china, by Guo Xiaolu or Love Education by Sylvia Chang are representative of this good practice and of an almost autobiographic narrative because they talk about themselves and about all the women of their country. With the five films screened during the series, the public will be able to understand the importance of a gender cinema offered with the perspectives of their directors.

The series begins on the 22nd of May 2019 with the presentation of the book Historia del cine chino (Editorial Berenice-Almuzara, 2019) with the participation of Ricard Planas, author of the book, Quim Crusellas, Director of Festival Nits de cinema oriental de Vic, and Gloria Fernández, Director of CineAsia.

Presentation of the films and film-fórum
Gloria Fernández y Enrique Garcelán, CineAsia.
Ricard Planas, teacher at the deparment of Humanities of Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 29th of May 2019, 6.30pm

Buddha Mountain 观音山, Dir. Li Yu | China | 2010 | 105 min
In Chengdu, China, a retired opera singer, Ms Zhang, hosts a trio of young people as tenants, a rock singer and two waiters, who have run away from home after leaving school. They will have to share their house trying to search for love in their desperate and chaotic lives. (2010. Best Film at the first edition of the Casa Asia Film Week).

Wednesday 5th of June 2019, 6.30pm

Una vida sencilla 桃姐, Dir. Ann Hui | China | 2011 | 117 min
Chun Tao-Chung has worked as a servant for the Leung family for 60 years. Now she looks after Roger, the only member of the Leung family who still lives in Hong Kong. One day, after work, Roger discovers that Tao has suffered a stroke and takes her to hospital. When she says she wants to quit her job and go to a home, he finds her a room in a centre that belongs to an old friend of his. Dedicating time and attention to Tao’s needs and cravings, Roger discovers what the old servant means for him. (2011: Venice Festival: Copa Volpi to the best actress (Deanie Yip).

Wednesday 12th of June 2019, 6.30pm

So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春, Dir. Zhao Wei | China | 2013 | 117 min
The film shows the experiences of a group of young students of university. Set in China in the 90’s it is a reflection of what love and friendship is in contrast with ambition, omissions and broken dreams. (2013. Best New Director at the Golden Roster Awards).

Wednesday 19th of June 2019, 6.30pm

Ella, una joven china 中国姑娘, Dir. Guo Xiaolu | China | 2009 | 98 min
Mei is a young Chinese woman who decides to leave her boring life in a village for the rush of Chongqing, the closest city. But nothing turns out as expected. After being fired from the factory where she works, she falls in love with Spikey, a hit man whose past soon catches his with him. Without thinking twice, she goes to London where she marries a man older than him, Mr Hunt.

Wednesday 26th of June 2019, 6.30pm

Love education 相爱相亲, Dir. Sylvia Chang | China | 2017 | 120 min
Sensitive generational drama about love through three women who represent the past, present and future of China. Their daughter, Hui Ying, decides to move her father’s grave from his hometown to their mother’s grave. However, his first wife, who has looked after the grave for years, does not accept it, and her disagreement ends up becominga problem for the whole city. (2019: 9 Nominations to the Hong Kong Film Awards among which we highlight the best film, director, script, actor and actress).

Date

2019/05/22 > 2019/06/26

Timetable

From the 22nd of May to the 26th of June 2019.

Venue

Fundació Institut Confuci de Barcelona
Sala Polivalente
c. Elisabets 10, -interior-
Barcelona

Ticket

Free admission with prior registration.

Organiser

Fundació Institut Confuci de Barcelona and CineAsia, in collaboration with Casa Asia.

Film Cycle: India – Bangladesh Selection from AFFBCN 2018

29/04/2019/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

From the 20th of April to the 15th of June of 2019

This selection of movies from India and Bangladesh (2016-2018) explores the quotidian life of humans and environments in which life lessons constitute for the drama experience. The images are particularly explicit which narrate and whose cultural identity of the models are referred to. Uniting India and Bangladesh in the same program has the advantage of being able to associate narratives although not identical, are similar in many aspects culturally. Bangladesh, a country created in 1971 after the dramatic partition from India with Pakistan to the north, east and west, divided by Indian territory until the creation of a Bangladeshi state and nation. With a total of 8 films screened in the Asian Film Festival Barcelona 2018, this program sets out the possibility to recover for all kinds of audiences the narratives that commercial cinema usually cannot male available. Works that already are classics like “Lipstick Under My Burkha” (India, 2018) or “No Bed of Roses” (Bangladesh, 2017) are the basis to later go in depth into exploring stories that cinema knows how to narrate with the intensity that the experiences demand of the protagonists. The cruelty of those who possess some kind of power, the defenselessness of the victims and impossibility to respond to situation and the humiliating and undeserving circumstances of humans are what converts these movies into the incomparable testimonies of a group or community’s life. In most of the cases, it is the social structure which consume the inferior that have no right to talk. The fight for survival and equality, women’s empowerment, couple’s crisis, social prejudices, despair and death lend a hand in the various occasions that are represented on screen bringing us closer to the figures which we finally identify ourselves with.

PROGRAMMING

Saturday 20^th of April of 2019, 20h

LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA, Dir. Alankrita Shrivastava | India | 2016 | 117 min | OVSTSP

Set in the crowded streets of a small Indian city, a college girl wearing a burkha fights against the cultural identity problems, aiming to become a pop star. A young beautician tries to escape from her small town’s claustrophobia. An oppressed housekeeper and mother of three child lives the alternative life of an entrepreneur seller. And a 55 year old widow rediscovers her sexuality through a telephonic romance. Trapped in their worlds, all of them claim their desires by performing secret acts of rebellion that take place in this coral movie.

Saturday 27^th of April of 2019, 20h

NO BED OF ROSES, Dir. Mostofa Sarwar Farooki | Bangladesh | 2017 | 86 min | OVSTSP

The famous cinema director Javed Hasan goes through the middle age crisis wondering if marriage and his career have demanded him too much. A date with Nitu, a childhood friend of his daughter, makes the rest. The protagonist lets himself be seduced by her and what comes next becomes a national scandal. Javed’s family cannot avoid disgrace. Finally he gets divorced from his wife Maya and ends separated from his daughter Saberi and his son Ahir. Javed and Nitu get married, but the new union is not a bed of roses since they must face the Bangladeshi social prejudices. Time before, Saberi and Nitu were close friends but, because of the public humiliation, their friendship weakens. In addition, Saberi realizes that Nitu has always competed against her since her childhood. Now she must get closer to her mother and encourage her to discover the positive things of being single. In the middle of despair they give support to each other.

Saturday 4^thof May of 2019, 20h

AJJI, Dir. Devashish Makhija | India | 2017 | 144 min | OVSTSP

Little Manda gets rapped and left on the top of a pile of garbage in her neighborhood. Her parents are more worried about her survival rather than her dignity; they prefer to forget that she has been rapped and to move on. The police feel powerless because the rapist is the son of a local politician. But Manda’s grandmother, Ajji, refuses to accept such an injustice. Can a fragile, arthritic and impotent elder woman deal with the bad wolf? Is there any hope of making justice in this cruel world? How to dissuade a rapist? “Ajji” is a parable of our times. There are no easy answers.

Saturday 11^th of May of 2019, 20h

KUCHH BHEEGE ALFAAZ, Dir. Onir | India | 2017 | 116 min | OVSTSP

Every night at 22h, Kolkata tunes in the radio to listen ‘Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz’, a series of chapters of unrequited love stories introduced by RJ Alfaaz who, despite of having many followers, prefers to keep distant and anonymous. Among his many fans there is Archana, a girl who works in a creative agency developing memes for trademarks. She is leucodhermic but still she lives life to the maximum. They meet; better said they speak for the first time through a lost phone call, when Archana accidentally dials Alfaaz’s number while she tries to contact her last blind date. A friendship blooms between the two strangers who hide behind their screens and it does not take too much time for the volcano to explode when they know exactly what they are.

Saturday 18^th of May of 2019, 20h

KALER PUTUL, Dir. Aka Reza Ghalib | Bangladesh | 2017 | 125 min | OVSTSP

Ten apparently unknown people arrive to a remote village. Instead of being welcomed by the host during breakfast, the group finds a strange message in which they are all accused of being murderers. Some of the guests seem to recognize the premise since it is similar to a very famous mystery novel’s plot. Believing it is a joke, the group decides to abandon. But the only way to leave the complex has been destroyed. Panic, suspicion and accusations take over all of them. Look into the past of every guest does not help at all. Neither the similarity with the novel’s plot since the real events do not seem to follow the sequence of the fiction. Will someone survive or will it end like the original narration: with no survivors?

Saturday 25^th of May of 2019, 20h

NOBLEMEN, Dir. Vandana Kataria | India | 2018 | 108 min | OVSTCAT

It is winter in a prestigious boarding school for young people, where kids still perform rituals and hierarchic codes. Shay is constantly attacked. Shay and Pia, the impulsive daughter of the new principal of Junior School are chosen Bassanio and Portia in the production of the Venice’s Marchant’s Founder’s. Murali, the charismatic theatre teacher, with no bad intention, puts Baadal as Shay’s understudy. Angry, Baadal swears to obtain Shay’s role at any cost and addresses to his friends Arjun looking for help. Events will make a sinister twist.

Saturday 8^thof June of 2019, 20h

SIDE A & SIDE B, Dir. Rahat Kazmi | India | 2018 | 115 min | OVSTCAT

A comedy about Kashmir? Probably not. Well, not entirely. The last movie of the director and co-writer Rahat Kazmi is a fascinating, captivating and moving drama about growing up in a conflict zone. Between bombs and bullets, a group of university friends are trying to take maxim profit to their lives but they need a break… Just like anyone would in their situation. Starting from a group of four intrepid friends (following the style of the Inbetweeners), who are bound by the love for cinema, they buy VHS Bollywood movies, but when the prohibition of TV and many movies appears (just like happened in 1994) the four friends do not give up. What happens then turns to be funny, totally credible and very entertaining. It ends, maybe, in more tense circumstances. But, as Kazmi said in the Mantostaan presentation during last year’s festival “It is a beautiful place with intelligent, cultured and polite people. They deserve the best. And this movie is a love letter to the people of Kashmir”.

Saturday 15^th of June of 2019, 20h

KIA & COSMOS, Dir. Sudipto Roy | India | 2018 | 123 min | OVSTSP

Kia is an autistic 15 years old girl who lives with her mother Diya in the south of Calcutta, her father died some years ago because of a heart attack. One day, Cosmos, a cat from the neighborhood, dies suddenly, which awakens Kia’s curiosity to discover the reason why. During an investigation at his own house, she finds many letters from her father in which there is his name written. Diya had concealed the truth to her daughter during all these years and her father is alive, for that she decides to start looking for him and to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Why did her father leave them? Will she find him?

Film cycle: From the 20^th of April to the 15^th of June of 2019

Cinemes Girona · C/ Girona, 175, 08025 Barcelona

Ticket price: 3.5 € | Cinemes Girona’s subscribers and partners ticket price: 2 €

*OVSTCAT| Original Version Subtitled in Catalan – OVSTSP | Original Version Subtitled in Spanish

Taiko Film | Healing Beats

02/04/2019/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Friday 5th of April 2019, at 20h

Taikofilm is a documentary directed by Iván Muñoz Ureta, whose aim is to introduce the spectator into the surprising world of taiko through renowned group and solo performances. He also draws upon interviews with some of its performers so taht we can get to know about its origins, its expansion and its capability to transmit diverse emotions. It is about stimulating the desire to explore taiko not only as a musical instrument, but also as an artistic discipline, a philosophy of life and as a culture. This apparently limited instrument manages to connect all those people around the world that make its discovery. This documentary will be presented by its author along with a live demosntration by Chieko Kokima. Casa Asia collaborates with Cinemes Girona of Barcelona, Begin Again, Cines Golem of Madrid and Cine Golem of Pamplona.

IVÁN MUÑOZ URETA

Iván Muñoz ureta was born in Pamplona in 1976. After taking up various courses and workshops in navarra and Guipúzcoa, he moved to Madrid where he studied scriptwriting and cinematography. He has worked as an extras coordinator, casting asistant, first and second assistant to the director and as a cinematographer. His love for music since his childhood led him to discover taiko in 1996 and, since 2000; he is one of the greatest scholars of this artistic discipline. His short film Taiko: Inochi no Kodo (2011) was selected in many festivals around the world. TAIKOFILM: HEALING BEATS is his first feature film.

TAIKO FILM | HEALING BEATS, 2018 (OVSTSP, 74’).

Presentation and screening in the presence of the director Iván Muñoz Ureta and

Menene Gras Balaguer, Culture and Exhibitions Director at Casa Asia +

Live Taiko demonstration by Chieko Kokima

Cinemes Girona · C/ Girona, 175, 08025 Barcelona

Ticket price: 10 € | Cinemes Girona’s subscribers and partners tiket price: 9 €

Course “Korean Cinema: a Walk around Korean History”

21/03/2019/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

From the 8th of April to the 1st of June 2019

South Korean cinema has been invisible throughout its recent history that separated the Korean peninsula into North and South and the years of dictatorship. What has happened to Korean films since 1999? We will get to know about the development cinematography has experimented from the end of the 20th century and the international projection its directors have.

Also if students are interested the course “Korean Cinema: a Walk around Korean History” is complemented with 6 screenings at Filmoteca de Catalunya of a selection of Korean films, with free access for registered students. There will be a presentation given by CineAsia and a film-forum after the screening. The 6 films will be chosen from the following proposals, which will be screened in their original version with subtitles in Spanish and Catalan, are the following The Housemaidby Kim Ki-young, 1960,Aimless Bullet by Yoo Hyun-mok, 1961, The Surrogate Woman by Im Kwon-taek, 1987, Barking Dogs never Bite, by Bong Joon-ho, 2000, Il Mare de Lee Hyun-seung, 2000, My Sassy Girl by Kwak Jae-young, 2001, Oasis by Lee Chang-dong, 2002, Burningby Lee Chang-dong 2018, La doncella by Park Chan-wook, 2016, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance by Park Chan-wook, 2005; Shiriby Kang Je-kyu, 1999; The Spy Gone North by Yoon Jong-bin, 2018.

SESSION 1

Monday 8th of April 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Presentation. Structure of the course. Ten keys to see Korean films: Introduction to Korea and Korean films: evolution of Korean society, politics and economy. General vision, how has it progressed, which are its influences, genres, position in the world, importance in Korean economy.

SESSION 2

Monday 15th of April 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Korean films before and after the War: from the birth of cinema to ghe Golden Age of Korean films. How do films reach the Korean peninsula? Japanese occupation. First films. The arrival of sound. Korean War. One of the fundaments for the knowledge of the Korean people is to deepen into the war analysis that separated Korean into 2: North Korea and South Korea. We will approach the characteristic features of Korean cinema before and after the war. The golden age of Korean cinema.

SESSION 3

Monday 29th of April 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

The decline, censorship and commercial Korean cinema: (1970-1980-1990). From the censorship and commercial cinema of the 70’s and 80’s we move on to a new economic leap. Political opening (1993 first democratic elections). Opening of exhibition halls. Development of chaebols. Audience share. Creation of the Pusan Festival (1996). In general: establishment of a “Korean film industry”.

SESSION 4

Monday 6th of May 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

The New Wave of Korean cinema (1999-2018). South Korean cinema has been invisible throughout history for conflicts and wars. What has happened with Korean cinema from 1999?

SESSION 5

Monday 13th of May 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Genres in Korean cinema. Commerciality vs auteur cinema. Genres in general: introduction. Korean melodrama: romantic comedy and drama are the genres par excellence. Action, thriller, horror, martial arts, war films. The genre mix in Korean cinema, as well as the mix in society (for example, in its gastronomy).

SESSIÓN 6

Monday 20th of May 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Great names of Korean cinema. Part I (1950-1998). Korean cinema before the turn of the century has been hidden due to political and military changes the Korean peninsula had to face. We will analyse the work of 5 key names to understand classic Korean cinema: Kim Ki-young, Sing Sang-ok, Lee Man-hee, Im Kwok-taek, Park Kwang-soo.

SESSION 7 and 8

Monday 27th of May and 3rd of June 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Great names of Korean cinema. Part II (1999-2018). After the screening of the film The Isle by Kim Ki-duk at the Venice Film Festival, Korean cinema begins to soak into the West. Since then, its directors have been around international festivals all over the world showing its cinema. We will analyse the work of 5 of them: Kim Ki-duk, Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong and Kim Ji-woon.

SESSION 9

Monday 10th of June 2009 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Korean Series: the success formula that succeeds all over the world. Doramas or Korean series make up a industry of its own. New or acclaimed directors and actors and actresses appear in cinematographic productions and in the market of series. A market that is not only limited to Korea, but is exported to the whole world.

SESSION 10

Monday 17th of June 2019 from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

Current and future situation of Korean cinema. Korean cinema currently has a share that is over 50%. A share that has been maintained from the beginning of the century. What’s the future of Korean cinema? New market expansion. Box Office and independent cinema.

Film series in collaboration with Filmoteca de Catalunya:

The course is complemented with a selection of Asian films that are screened at the Filmoteca de Catalunya, the last Thrusdays of the month (2 sessions per month) at 5.00pm, between the months of April and May 2019. Students will have free access to sessions, which will count on a presentation by CineAsia, as well as a film-forum or debate, at the end of session. Scheduled films (to be confirmed by the Filmoteca depending on availability):

The Housemaid/Aimless Bullet: Thursday 18th of April at 5.00pm at Filmoteca de Catalunya

Barking Dogs Never Bite/The Surrogate Woman: Thursday 25th of April at 5.00 h at Filmoteca de Catalunya

My Sassy Girl/Il Mare: Thursday 23rd of May at 5.00pm at Filmoteca de Catalunya

Oasis/Burning: Thursday 30th of May at 5.00pm at Filmoteca de Catalunya

La doncella/Sympathy for Lady Vengeace: Thursday 20th of June at 5.00pm at Filmoteca de Catalunya

The Spy Gone North/Shiri: Thursday 27th of June at 5.00pm at Filmoteca de Catalunya

Teachers:

Gloria Fernández

Enrique Garcelán

Victor Muñoz

Eduard Terrades Vicens

Date

2019/04/08 > 2019/06/27

Timetable

10 sessions of 2 hours at Casa Asia: from the 8th of April 2019 to the 17th of June 2019, every Monday from 7.00pm to 9.00pm

The 6 screenings at the Filmoteca de Catalunya: from the 18th of April to the 27th of June, the two last Thursdays of the month (January, February, March).

Total length of the course and number and length of sessions: 20 hours, 10 sessions of 2 hours (10 sessions at Casa Asia) + free access to the 6 screenings of Filmoteca de Catalunya.

Venue

Can Jaumandreu
c/ Perú, 52
Barcelona

Ticket

130 Euros for the 10 sessions of 2 hours at Casa Asia. The first 10 students who register will receive the Anuario CineAsia Vol.2 (on the first day of the course).

Organiser

Casa Asia, in collaboration with Filmoteca de Catalunya and CineAsia.

Film Cycle: “ImagineIndia: Indian Cinema 2017-2018”

11/03/2019/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Saturdays from the 2nd of March to the 13th of April 2019

Casa Asia presents a new film cycle with a selection of movies directed between 2017 and 2018, with India as the panoramic axis, of the daily lives of individuals that represent the vast majority. The geography of the poverty dominates the successive dramas that are depicted in each of these 5 movies, which are being projected during this month of March.

The landscape of insecurity constitutes the setting of all the stories narrated, with the intention of discovering the hidden and silenced lives although not any less significant for this reason. Only one of the five films is from Sri Lanka, but we have created this opportunity for its inclusion in this monographic because of the proximity to the themes its deals with. None of these movies usually gains access into the commercial circuits, and for this reason it seemed interesting to repeat the collaboration that we have been maintaining since a while with ImagineIndia International Film Festival to gain access to this minority cinema. It is a cinema that is a long way from the Bollywood genre and clearly tends to assert its view about the society based on the defence of pluralism, human rights and gender politics. A necessary cinema but that is not always within reach, since the cinematographic industry prefers to identify leisure with entertainment. The critical look that covers the films: Light in the Room (2017), Purdah (2018), Earth (2018), The Death of Us (2018) y Unsaid (2018) dedicatedly talks about the strength of a political cinema as this one as an instrument of denunciation that should interest all audiences.

PROGRAM

LIGHT IN THE ROOM, Dir. Rahul Riji Nair | India | 2017 | 102 min | 2nd of March 2019, 8pm

PURDAH, Dir. Jeremy Guy | India, USA | 2018 | 71 min | 16th of March 2019, 8pm

+ THE PEANUT SELLER, Dir. Etienne Sievers | India, Germany | 2018 | 19 min

PAANGSHU (EARTH), Dir. Visakesa Chandrasekaram | Sri Lanka | 2018 | 85 min | 23rd of March 2019, 8pm

THE DEATH OF US, Dir. Vani Subramanian | India | 2018 | 76 min | 30th of March 2019, 8pm

UNSAID, Dir. Arjun Dutta | India | 2018 | 85 min | 13th of April 2019, 8pm

Place

Cinemes Girona

C/ Girona, 175

Barcelona

Tickets

Price: 3,5 € | Prices for members of Cinemes Girona: 2 €

Organizers

Casa Asia, ImagineIndia International Film Festival and Cinemes Girona

Film Series: ‘Retrospectiva Kore-eda’

28/11/2018/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Saturdays from December the 1st to the 22nd 2018

Casa Asia continues with the programme of the Asian Film Festival | AFFBCN projecting in Cinemes Girona part of the Restrospective of Kore-eda with the films: I Wish (2007), Still Walking (2008), Air Doll (2009) and Our Little Sister (2016) which were missing to complete the tribute to this big filmmaker.

Hirokazu Kore-eda was born in 1962 in Tokyo. After graduating from the Faculty of Literature at Waseda University, he started to work for TV Man Union, an important production company for television, where he directed many documentaries awarded internationally. His first feature film Maboroshi no hikari won the Golden Osella at the 1995 Venice Film Festival. His second film, Wandafuru Raifu (After Life) (1999) was released in more than 30 countries. His third film, Distance, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival (2001). Nobody Knows won the Best Actor Award (Yagira Yuuya) at the Cannes Film Festival (2004) and was highly acclaimed all over the world. In 2006 he wrote and directed Hana; his first film based on a period, in which he explored the world of the samurais and the revenge in the Edo Period. In 2008, Still Walking, which talks about a personal experience, was released at the Toronto Festival and won the Best Director Award at the Asian Film Awards and the Golden Astor Award at the International Mar de Plata Festival. That same year, he directed his first full-length documentary, Daijobu de aruyo ni: Cocco owaranai tabi, in which he follows the Japanese singer-songwriter Cocco during a tour. It is undoubtedly an opportunity to see the production of this Japanese filmmaker, taking into account that the project is a collaboration with Filmoteca de Cataluña where the five titles that make up the retrospective.

Programme:

I WISH, Dir. Koreeda Hirokazu | Japan | 2017 | 127 min | December the 1st, 8pm

STILL WALKING, Dir. Koreeda Hirokazu | Japan | 2008 | 114 min | December 8th, 8pm

AIR DOLL, Dir. Koreeda Hirokazu | Japan | 2009 | 125 min | December 15th, 8pm

OUR LITTLE SISTER, Dir. Koreeda Hirokazu | Japan | 2016 | 128 min | December 22nd, 8pm

Place: Cinemes Girona. C/Girona, 175. Barcelona.

Ticket:

General: 3.5 euros.
Cinemes Girona’s subscribers and members: 2 euros.

Organizer: Casa Asia, Retrospectiva Kore-eda and Cinemes Girona

Film Series “India: cinema as an instrument of protest”

28/11/2018/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

July 21st and July 28th 2018

It is an occasion to show a kind of cinema in which social gaze, defence of pluralism, equality of opportunities, human rights and gender policies. Actually, they are like two windows to worlds, that we have no chance to see and to know and that we are only allowed to access to them through cinema. Despite the distance in time that mediates between the production of both films, the social reality and the critical eye is imposed. It is always interesting to recover cinematographic realisms as the one that is defined as a sector of directors that see cinema as an instrument of protest to raise awareness among all audiences.

Programme:

Place: Cinemes Girona. C/Girona, 175. Barcelona.

Ticket:

General: 3.5 euros.
Cinemes Girona’s subscribers and members: 2 euros.

Organizer: Casa Asia, ImagineIndia International Film Festival and Cinemes Girona

Film Series: “ImagineIndia International Film Festival”

27/11/2018/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

Saturdays from the 22nd of September to the 20th of October of 2018

Casa Asia presents a selection of films of the last edition of ImagineIndia International Film Festival, with 5 films from Australia, China, Iran, the Philippines and Hong Kong: King of Peking (2017), Highway 318 (2017), Blockage(2017), Bomba (2017), Out of Frame (2016).

Without this festival probably none of these films would have reached our country. This is why we have organised this film series where what pravails is a social look, defence of pluralism and equal opportunities, as well as human rights and gender policies. They are really windows to different worlds that we can’t really see but we can approach through films. Social realism is within these films from a critical point of view using this support to condemn and to raise awareness.

Programme:

OUT OF FRAME, Dir. Wai Lun Kwok | Hong Kong | 2016 | 95 min | 22nd of September, 8pm

BOMBA, Dir. Ralston Gonzales Jover | The Philippines | 2017 | 105 min| 29th of September, 8pm

HIGHWAY 318, Dir. Yunxing Nie | China | 2017 | 96 min | 6th of October, 8pm

BLOCKAGE, Dir. Mohsen Gharaei | Iran | 2017 | 82 min | 13th of October, 8pm

KING OF PEKING, Dir. Sam Voutas | China / Australia | 2017 | 87 min | 20th of October, 8pm

Venue: Cinemes Girona. C/Girona, 175. Barcelona.

Ticket:

General: 3,5 euros.
Season ticket holders and members of Cinemes Girona: 2 euros.

Organiser: Casa Asia, ImagineIndia International Film Festival and Girona Cinema

Film Series AFFB Awards | Asian Film Festival Barcelona

27/11/2018/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

From the 3rd to the 24th of July, 2018

Filmoteca Española and Casa Asia present a selection of the winning films from the last edition of the AFFB | Asian Film Festival Barcelona (2017). Out of all the films, Filmoteca has selected eight titles that are the most representative of this great geographical area extending from Central Asia, the former Soviet republics, to Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Among the more than one hundred films screened at the festival, the eight Films to be presented at Filmoteca were awarded by some of the five juries of the last edition of the AFFB: the Official Jury, Panorama, NETPAC, Special Sections (Cathay Pacific) and Discoveries (Film Schools). They are experimental and independent films, which is often outside the commercial circuits and somehow only penetrates Europe through festivals that proactively incorporate Asian film in its programming.

The selected titles reflect narratives that are built from its territory, navigating the division between space and place, developing the location and time of the action and happenings. Hence, a production like Dawn of the Felines (Best Screenplay for the Official Section) tells stories that the viewer can relate to not so much by the cinematographic aesthetic but by what is narrated. It is a film that gathers three stories of girls who work as “escorts,” but whose loneliness makes them more fragile, finally humanizing them.

The topics that are referenced in this programme have to do with the domestic and daily life of large cities in developed countries such as Japan, Iran, New Zealand and India or emerging countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Afghanistan. A Father’s Will, Children of Genghis and Wolf and Sheep are films that narrate the great contrasts still existing between urban life and the rural world, trying to show the distance that in theory is closing between the differences of both landscapes. In A Father’s Will, the diaspora in both directions exposes the extent to which large migrations can affect those involved; first, when they arrive at the place of reception, and second, when they return to their country of origin, where changes that have occurred prevent their rapid adaptation.

In Children of Genghis, the Mongolian traditions of wrestling, horse racing and archery defend tradition in the face of change and progress accredited to a second period. Afghanistan, in turn, is one of the most narrated countries in film taking into account what it had contributed to the world history of cinema in the past, although it has scarce native production.

In Wolf and Sheep (Best Film in the Panorama Section) a secret country is revealed that at first glance is not seen, while tradition and customs are imposed on a particularly rural society. The remaining titles of the sample give continuity to topics and problems that lend themselves to the great stories of a contemporary society in which the discrepancias are at the source of great complexity of the conflicts that arise due to the impossibility of integrating tradition and modernity in a global era. For more information about the festival:: http://asianfilmfestival.barcelona

Programme:

Venue: Filmoteca Española de Madrid. C/ Santa Isabel, 32. Madrid.

Ticket:

General: 3 euros per session. 20 euros for 10 sessions.
Student: 2 euros per session. 15 euros for 10 sessions.

Organiser: Casa Asia and Filmoteca Española de Madrid, in collaboration with Consejería Cultural de la Embajada de la R.l. de Irán en España, Farabi Foundation, Aitysh Film, Culture Distributor LLC.

Essay by the Asian Film Festival Barcelona Director

31/10/2018/in News /by Asian Film Festival Barcelona

GLOBAL ASIA

ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL BARCELONA 2018

Introduction

Menene Gras Balaguer

Director for Culture and Exhibitions and director of the Asian Film Festival. Barcelona

Approximately a hundred feature films from critical geographies that challenge the globalization of the markets while maintaining its cultural hegemony are part of the Asian Film Festival Barcelona’s program, which celebrates it sixth edition this year. With a wide selection of more than five hundred titles that came to us this year from more than twenty countries – from Central Asia to Southeast Asia and Oceania – the festival rejects the “unique story” encouraging the exploration of the relationship between place and identity. Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Butan, China, Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Mongolia, New Zeeland, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Tajikistan and Vietnam are the components of this great mosaic of cultures and traditions from the existing symbiosis between nation and narration, while building the architecture of their respective imaginaries that make up the different identities.

The festival proposal consists of a relation of images that perform what Edward Said called “travelling identities” as if trying to show a kind of inventory of the fractures regarding an injured modernity, which keeps its struggle between a postcolonial discourse and the progress. Based on the possibility that “my East can be your West”, between countries that share borders within the same area or region of the Asian continent, the program tends to move pre-set notions about migrations, the perception of one’s own identity and others or the divisions that isolate us and separate us from the rest of the world. Daily life, domestic or social conflict and the private and public life of people are revealed through their dramatization, understanding that it stimulates the viewer’s response. He or she can thus become actors by representing themselves and seeing them performed by others in all their opacity and fragility.

This year, the AFFBCN’s program is distributed in the following sections: Official, Official Panorama, Discoveries, Netpac and Special, all in competition. The Retrospective section will be dedicated to the Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, the last winner of the Cannes Gold Palm 2018 with “Shoplifters”, a feature film that will open the festival. Among the news of this edition, it is worth mentioning the presentation of a selection of the latest Asian Film Awards, which are annually granted by the Asian Film Academy based in Hong Kong to the best Asian cinema. The seven titles that have been gathered this time are distributed among the different sections as well as the four feature films from Macau, whose presence in this festival has no precedent. We will go on counting with the important contributions of films from China, Korea, India, Iran and Japan. Without forgetting the participation of the countries that shape Central Asia, to which is added the cinema of countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Cambodia, on the one hand; nor the importance that the Australian and New Zealander cinema has in this festival. In all cases, it is about a cinema that one more year will offer a contemporary portrait of Asian society, both rural and urban, for all audiences.

Once again, Casa Asia continues with its commitment so that Barcelona can accomplish a festival that captures the best cinema from Asia, and which facilitates public access to productions in this region, as well as the meeting among professionals in the sector and from the film industry. AFFB’s engagement to Asian cinema is firm, as has been shown in previous years, and how it is intended to be in the feature editions. Casa Asia has tried to consolidate the presence of Asian cinema in our city, not only with the celebration of this festival, but with the programming that it carries out throughout the year, weekly in the Cinemas Girona.