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Osaka Asian Film Festival 2021 Opens with Keep Rolling

(OAFF) has started this year's run, its 16th, with the Japanese premiere screening of “” at Umeda Burg 7 on March 05, 2021.

The evening launched with a video message from KAMIKURA Tsuneyuki (上倉庸敬), Chairperson of the Osaka Executive Committee for the Promotion of Moving Image Culture in which he gave the opening greetings. Then, before the screening of the opening film “Keep Rolling”, audiences were shown a video message from MAN Lim-chung (文念中), the director, and (許鞍華), the subject of the documentary.

During the introductory video, Ann HUI said, “Hello, everyone at Osaka Asian Film Festival, I'm Ann HUI. I'm honored that MAN Lim-chung's film about me was selected as the opening film. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy 2021. I hope the pandemic will end and we can all watch films in cinemas soon.” Following her, director MAN said “Hello, everyone at Osaka Asian Film Festival. I'm honored that ‘Keep Rolling' was selected as the opening film so Japanese audiences can witness the growth of Director Hui and Hong Kong film industry.”

The Osaka Asian Film Festival 2021 is taking place until March 14 in Osaka, screening 63 films from 23 countries and regions.

The 16th Osaka Asian Film Festival will screen films in cinemas from March 5 to 14, and online from February 28 to March 20. The online selection includes 7 films screened at past editions of OAFF and 2 Taiwanese classics from this year's festival.

As we approach the opening, we would like to introduce the greetings of TERUOKA Sozo (暉峻創三), Programming Director of Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Greetings

TERUOKA Sozo
Programming Director
Osaka Asian Film Festival

Welcome to the 16th Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Last year, OAFF became one of the first major international film festivals to be hit by the COVID-19 crisis. Even so, we managed to screen the films and select the awards as planned, thanks to the warm understanding and cooperation of you all. Once again, I would like to express my gratitude.

Since then, many film festivals around the world have been forced to cancel, postpone, or scale back their events. However, we gave first priority to how we should contribute to society in these difficult times, and made preparations to hold this year's festival as planned, with the
same scale and vitality as in previous years.

As in the past, we will be showing a number of new films in theaters that introduce fresh and cutting-edge talents in Asia. In addition, the has been established as a new initiative to screen old films online, including those that have been particularly well received at past festivals and legendary works in the history of Taiwanese cinema.

The new films screened in theaters will give you a glimpse of how Asian filmmakers have been tenaciously making films over the past year to share the joy of life with people. Freshly produced films reflecting the new era of living with COVID-19, which have not yet been screened at major film festivals or released in theaters, will also be screened.

I hope you will enjoy the latest fruits of Asian cinema and the unfading depth of the old films at both the in-theater and online screenings at OAFF.


About the author

Adam Symchuk

Adam Symchuk is a Canadian born freelance writer and editor who has been writing for Asian Movie Pulse since 2018. He is currently focused on covering manga, manhwa and light novels having reviewed hundreds of titles in the past two years.

His love of film came from horror and exploitation films from Japan that he devoured in his teens. His love of comics came from falling in love with the works of Shuzo Oshimi, Junji Ito, Hideshi Hino, and Inio Asano but has expanded to a general love of the medium and all its genres.

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