Film Series: “Orient Express” at Betevé and Movistar+ (Jan.-Jun. 2022)

Betevé and Casa Àsia continue to collaborate to make possible a new programme of Asian cinema that will consist of twelve titles, from the 7th of January 2022. The programme “Orient Express”, which is broadcasted weekly on Fridays, at 22 o’clock, will present twelve films in succession from Afghanistan, China, Korea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and New Zealand.

Films like A Letter to the President and Rockabul from Afghanistan, The Rib from China, Dust from India, Wild Jonquils and Yeva from Iran, Only the Cat Knows from Japan, and Ms. Purple from Korea are only a paradigm from the new Asian cinema and its geographies. In this new edition, Casa Àsia keeps its commitment to genre, experimental and independent cinema, of undeniable potential, as is shown not only in the aforementioned titles but also in Out of Paradise from Mongolia, 27 Steps of May from Indonesia, The Girl and the Sea from Kazakhstan, and Broken from New Zealand, all representative of a more peripheral cinema. The growth of the cinematographic industry, to a greater or lesser degree, is unstoppable in these and other countries, and it is because of it that the presence of its respective cinematography is ever more relevant at every national and international festivals.

PROGRAMME:

For the sake of a dream of creating a family and having a baby, Assel, despite an incurable disease, is ready to go through all the trials and make any sacrifices. And even having lost hope for the realization of her dream, she still retains faith in her to the end.

Eight years ago, a 14-year-old May was gang raped. Traumatized significantly by this incident, May withdraws completely from life. While May lives her life without connections, emotions, or words, her father, trapped by feelings of guilt leads a double life. With May, he is a gentle soul who sacrifices everything to provide comfort and protection for his daughter. But in the boxing ring, he is a boxer who fights to channel his rage. Father and daughter have lived this way for 8 years until a stranger, a magician, moves in next door and creates a small crack in May’s carefully erected protective wall. The film was presented at the Göteborg Film Festival 2019 and the Busan International Film Festival 2018.

In rural heights, a school receives a warrant from the Ministry of Education, stating that if the required capacity is not fulfilled, the school should shut down. The teacher decides to go to the neighbouring villages, heights and forests in person to convince all the parents that is a must for their children to get educated. When he falls ill, his fiancée steps forward to assist him. But everything gets more complicated and eventually one of the students volunteers to take responsibility for keeping classes running smoothly.

While Chinese queer directors have explored trans characters and featured trans actors before, Zhang Wei’s The Rib is the first mainstream feature film to interrogate contemporary Chinese society’s transphobia. Trans woman Huang Yi braves coming out to her patronizing male roommate and her devoutly Catholic father, whose signature she needs for male-to-female surgery. Meanwhile, Huang’s defiantly proud post-op friend, Liu Mann, reminds us all that the greatest challenges are of the heart, not the body. The director of passionate, socially topical films Zhang Wei has created a queer-positive film that details patriarchy, heterosexism, and transphobia while following a father’s gradual recognition of his daughter’s struggle and his embrace of a new meaning for family. The film was presented at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2018, and it won the 2018 Busan International Film Festival’s Kim Jiseok Award.

Today, Afghans are one of the largest migrant populations fleeing their country for Europe or the West. Since 2002 the international community has injected more than a trillion dollars into Afghanistan. What went wrong? This film examines the counter-insurgency, the culture campaign that the US government, within and others, waged. Told through the eyes of Afghan youth, who start the country’s first ever heavy metal band and an adventurous Australian, who created a Western style music scene in the capital – Kabul. Will head banging, disenchanted Afghans win the hearts and minds of their peers or will the Taliban come back from the grave?

Masaru just retired and he and his wife Yukiko are expecting to have a quiet life with their cat, CHIBI, after their kids have left home. Yukiko feels that she was abandoned by her husband, who has never expressed appreciation for her years of support, let alone his love for her. One day, their loving cat CHIBI disappears. However, Masaru does not seem to care about it at all. His attitude triggers Yukiko to decide that it is time for them to divorce. After a long, intense discussion, Masaru confesses a story to her, which he has held in secret for years. The film was presented at the Far East Film Festival 2019.

David retraces the footsteps of his lost love and embarks on a journey to the troubled heart of India, where his girlfriend Mumtaz was last seen. Mumtaz was a photographer and David’s only remaining clue as to how she spent her final days is one of her photos which depict a small boy. In search of the boy, he meets the ageing, cynical Dr Sharda whom he asks for help. But before long David finds himself confronted with Sharda’s dark past – a past that Mumtaz documented in her photographs. The film was presented at the Berlin Film Festival 2019.

Elizabeth is a self-made woman. She is in her 40’s. She is bent on living on her own for the rest of her days. After her mother passes away due to a lingering and suffering disease, she meets Jon. He is a young man, 20 years junior. When love blooms between them, he tries to convince her about the not age boundaries at love. The love story seems to be ok, but Liz realizes that she can not to be part of the Jon’s dreams.

Previously, Mathew Higgins was a white, middle-class guy who led a suburban existence. Now, he is a man shaped by pain;, angry, alone and without a family. When his Aboriginal grandson whom he barely knew re-enters his life, he will try hard to reconcile his deepest pain with the child in front of him.

The White Building in Phnom Penh, built as social housing during the 1960s, is about to be torn down. With the agreement of almost all of the 493 resident families, its demolition is intended to make way for a new project to build new flats. Hand in hand with its inhabitants, including his own family, the director portrays the last days of this dying mega-structure, which has witnessed Cambodia’s troubled recent history and which, with its disappearance, leaves only the memory of an era.

The seemingly idyllic domestic life of retired pensioner Chang-sik and his bedridden after a stroke and speechless wife Gil-soon, as well as his caretaker Sook-ok, an undocumented Chinese- Korean immigrant, begins to crumble when Gil-soon develops an ulcer that does not heal. The appearance of the ulcer opens up old wounds and family grievances in this debut feature by Shim Hyejung, which makes us reflect on the ethics of caring for the elderly and the disabled, as well as the responsibilities we have as family members, social workers or geriatricians.

Shokoo, a middle-aged woman, discovers that her ex-husband, Fereydoun, has been placed in an asylum by their children. She and her second husband, Reza, decide to take care of Fereydoun and bring him home. The relationship between Shokoo and Fereydoun soon disrupts the couple’s daily lives. The situation unintentionally affects Reza and Shokoo, producing unexpected changes in the lives of the three characters.

A Dalit (untouchable) family living in Kerala loses their house and property during the rainy season. Their members also loose their jobs and are forced to move to Himachal Pradesh to work as guards in an apple orchard. However, they find themselves in a place where language and culture are totally unknown to them. This is coupled with the adverse climate and the discrimination imposed by the caste system in India.

In this documentary, the director followed the lives of two extraordinary Afghan women for four years: Nilofar, a member of parliament, and Shakila, a television journalist. The withdrawal of American forces and international aid to Afghanistan leaves democracy and women’s recent victories hanging by a thread, so Nilofar and Shakila must choose between motherhood and their professional ambitions in the face of growing threats to them and their families.

A crew led by a hit Bollywood filmmaker arrives in a remote Himalayan village to shoot a song and dance sequence. Soon they find themselves cut off from the outside world after torrential downpours and landslides and forced to go through some intense and unforgettable experiences. How those eventful days under siege, affect the thoughts and priorities of the filmmaker, forms the central theme of the film. The film was presented at the International Film Festival of Kerala 2018, the Dhaka International Film Festival 2018, the Montreal World Film Festival 2018 and the Hanoi International Film Festival 2018. It was the winner to the Best Screenplay award at Aurangabad International Film Festival 2019 and to the Critics awards at the Oporto International Film Festival 2019.

Best Film at the 8th International Persian Film Festival (Sydney, 2019) It is the story of seven sisters: Shabaneh, Negar, Nahid, Fereshteh, Niloufar, Rahil and Shekar. Although each one of them lives her own story, their lives are crossed by the impossibility of finding love and building their own destiny, because forced marriage, abuse and gender violence prevent them from doing so.

Vinci Da is a make-up artist with a strong and conflicting personality. He wants to make a name for himself in the industry, but his character constantly creates problems. His situation makes him be in constant danger. Adi Bose is a murderer who thinks he is a justice lawyer who wants to put an end to criminals, and his appearance ends up linking him to the main character

Carmen is a devoted mother who must cope with the setbacks resulting from her husband’s suicide. Two years earlier he had abandoned her for another woman. The 54-year-old mathematician had taken on debts she could not pay. She recovered the jewellery shop that Carmen managed for her but at the cost of her own life. After the tragic outcome, she only wants to keep the family together, although she cannot control her children.

Emkan is a 17-year-old teenager who has not seen his father for many years and his mother works until late night in a factory. He has a small recording camera and he decides to make a film to give a twist to his routine life. Although Emkan is not very proficient, he tries his best to achieve his goal.

Young-jin’s company rarely recognizes her dedication to her job because she is a woman, while her co-worker, Ju-seol, has had no trouble working her way up to Young-jin’s boss thanks to his connections. Young-jin sees Jun-seol as an enemy, but at the same time feels sympathy for his emptiness and helps him adjust to the company. But Jun-seol nevertheless does not hesitate to steal his subordinate’s designs without her consent. Young-jin wishes to get the stolen design back, but finds it very difficult to give up his hard-earned love for Jun-seol.

Mahender Nath Kaul ‘Azad’, besides being an Urdu poet, has been teaching Urdu for thirty years at Awadh Degree College, Lucknow. Although the number of students in his Urdu class has declined year after year, Azad’s love for the language has only multiplied. Amidst family constraints and everyday disagreements, one day the principal of Awadh Degree College informs Azad of the decision to close the college’s Urdu department. Azad, along with his disciples and other close associates, starts the peaceful and unifying “Learn Urdu and Succeed” movement, which will be criticized and condemned by Hindu and Muslim communal forces. Going against these will cost Azad too much, but it will also be the coming of a revolution, of a new dawn.

Confronted with the reality of climate change and resource depletion, filmmaker Emmanuel Cappellin realizes that the collapse of our industrial civilization is inevitable. But how can we continue to live with the idea that the human adventure could fail? To find the answer, Cappellin decides to consult experts and scientists such as Pablo Servigne, Jean-Marc Jancovici and Susanne Moser. Together, they issue a collective and supportive manifesto to prepare a transition as humane as possible.

Danny is one of the thousands of Filipino migrant workers who had to return to their country during the COVID-19 pandemic. He escapes from the quarantine center to be reunited with his family, but upon being taken in he realizes the appalling conditions in which they live. Danny, in order to survive during the crisis, falls into the sordid world of online sex work acting in a clandestine brothel run by a certain Rene, where he will end up working in exchange for protection, after avoiding the health authorities, who raided his house taking his family and who are still after him.

Van, heir to a Vietnamese clan, returns home from the United States for the first time in 9 years, to help move his father’s grave. Surprise the whole family by arriving accompanied by Ian, a young Vietnamese American. No one knows that Ian is Van’s boyfriend and that both are planning to tell Van’s mother, Ms. Hanh, who hopes her son will marry and become a father to fulfill her duty as heir. To top it all, his grandmother, who has senile dementia, mistakes Ian for her grandson. While desperately searching for the perfect occasion to come out of the closet, Van discovers that Ms. Hanh is seriously ill.

07/01/2022
From the 7th of January 2022 to the 25th of March 2022. Fridays at 22.00 h.
Betevé (on TDT and Movistar+’s 160 channel)
Casa Àsia and Betevé.