Taking place in the gambling capital of China, Macao film festival is honouring the regional and international movies, directors, actors, and actresses for their outstanding work. International Film & Awards Festival Macao (IFFAM) has been taking place since 2016 and brings together the cinematic industries from Asia to the West.
During the festival, attendees get to enjoy the highly curated 50 films from Asia as well as international films. It aims to support and promote the film industry in the region and to encourage more young people to get into the film industry.
The IFFAM has the centre section of the festival that focuses on the international competition between 10 films from first-time or second-time directors from around the world. There is also a separate section for Chinese Cinema where 8 films compete for the best Chinese-language film of the year.
Why Macau?
The festival lasts for six days but has activities and programs outside of the festival that continues for the whole year and promotes the film industry even before the festival starts.
A very important aspect of the festival is to promote Macao as a cultural destination and to showcase its potential as the location for shooting films.
Macau has been the entertainment capital of China, because of its gambling venues but recently it has been losing its momentum. Partially because online casinos have become so big that it no longer makes sense for some people to travel and visit these gambling hubs just to enjoy the games.
Instead Online casinos have been gaining attention and more people chose this sort of gambling over the traditional way.
This isn’t the only China issue. Online casinos are taking over across the world. The best online blackjack site in New Zealand can attract more gamblers than most brick and mortar casinos in the country. While the real-life casinos struggle to stay on top of their game the online industry is taking over, forcing Macau to branch out to keep its relevance.
The film festival took place from December 5-10, 2019 and offered the viewers many interesting interviews with industry professionals.
The festival opener was Jojo Rabbit, a brave, humorous take on Adolf Hitler. The film centres around a lonely German boy, who discovered that his single mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in their attic. The boy is aided by his idiotic imaginary friend-Adolf Hitler as Jojo tries to confront his blind nationalism.
Directed by Taika Waititi the film stars Scarlett Johansson and Waititi as Hitler himself. The closing film was I’m livin’ it by Hing Fan Wong, and it covers the lives of homeless and disenfranchised in Hong Kong, The main character is a former big boss in finance who is now struggling to make ends meet and we get to see him at his best and at his lowest.
Highlights of the 5-day festival
Before the festival began there was a traditional Chinese blessing ceremony. It was attended by IFFAM artistic director Mike Goodridge, the international jury head Hong Kong director Peter Chan Ho-sun, the director of Macao Government Tourism Office and president of the IFFAM organizing committee Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes.
At the opening ceremony, a traditional Chinese lion dance was performed. The red carpet was full of Macao and International celebrities, including Miss Macau 2019 Bobo Leong, Emily Yau, and Danielle Wong. Singers were also attending the festival with the South Korean singer and actor Kim Jun-Myon, also known as Suho attending the event with his group Exo.
On the third day of the festival, Kim Yong-Hwa offered a masterclass in filmmaking. Yong-Hwa is well known for his popular Along with the Gods franchise which set box office records. A french actress Juliette Binoche also took part in the masterclass and shared her thoughts and advice regarding the film industry.
The festival was full of innovative and interesting panels as well as thought-provoking films. The effort was evident throughout the 5 days of the festival and it might actually help Macau to boost itself and gain the new set of visitors.
The film industry has been quite shaky in the last few years. While this year we’ve some very successful movies coming from the region, including The Parasite which got worldwide recognition of the need to encourage young film-makers through projects like these and to show appreciation for the industry veterans remains crucial.
