The Sardinian international festival dedicated to Asian cinema, Across Asia Film Festival, is back with its eight edition and is going to run from 16 to 20 December 2021 in Cagliari.
Born with the aim of making Far Eastern film production known to the public, developing international cultural exchanges and favouring a more in-depth intercultural vision, the festival is finally back in attendance, after the success of the previous editions in Cagliari and Rome. With a wide-ranging program that includes training sessions and meetings with international guests, the festival offers a diversified exploration, this year focusing in particular on female cinema and independent Japanese cinema. Five days of appointments; screenings of European and national premieres, masterclasses, meetings with international guests, installations, special events. Moreover, until January 31st 2022 at the “Stefano Cardu” Siamese Art Museum, the exhibition “Japanese Notebooks” will showcase illustrations by Igort, one of the Sardinian artists who explored the Far East and Japanese culture with greater rigor.
Under the artistic direction of Stefano Galanti and Maria Paola Zedda, Across Asia Film Festival is a project of ZEIT – Art Research – cultural association dedicated to the promotion of art, performance and cinematography – with the contribution of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, Municipality of Cagliari and Fondazione di Sardegna, the support of the Sardegna Film Commission Foundation, together with the collaboration of ERSU – Regional Body for the Right to University Study of Cagliari, Ticonzero, Società di Sant'Anna, Contemp0ranea – Liceo Artistico Brotzu di Quartu, DiDstudio and to media partners Asian World and Asia Movie Pulse.
Free admission subject to availability, by reservation and with mandatory green pass.
Programma of this eighth edition
The festival opens on Thursday 16 December in Cagliari with a program of European, national and regional premieres focused on the programming of Far Eastern and South East Asian cinema. All screenings will be held at ERSU's Sala Teatro Nanni Loy.
Ample breath is given to female cinematography, with the projection of works by directors who today represent some of the most interesting views on the great changes of the Asian continent.
Come Here by Anocha Suwichakornpong – Thailandia, 2021, 69′
A journey through images in western Thailand, towards the memorial museum of the countless victims of the “death railway” of the Second World War.
Virgin Blue by Xiaoyu Niu – Cina, 2021, 100′
A dreamlike journey starring the young Yezi on the summer in which she returns to visit her grandmother, in prey to memory loss.
Climbing by Kim Hye-mi – Corea del Sud, 2020, 77′
An animated film, a raw female story about the difficult reconciliation between sport passion and motherhood.
Visionary and at the same time political, the production of South East Asia is represented as always at the Across Asia Film Festival by a large number of works.
24 by Royston Tan – Singapore, 2021, 77′
A glimpse into the complexity of the world of South East Asia, observed by the point of view of a direct sound engineer, between sexuality and humor, in a queer perspective.
The Edge of Daybreak by Taiki Sakpisit – Thailandia, 2021, 114′
Dedicated to the political upheavals of Thailand in the 1970s, the film observes and paraphrases the current scenario Director Taiki Sakpisit will be a guest of the festival.
New Abnormal by Sorayos Prapapan – Thailandia, 2021, 15′
A foray into human life during the Covid-19 pandemic
Underground Cemetery by Wisarut Sriputsomboon – Thailandia, 2020, 29′
A sarcastic reflection on karma, guilt and the political climate in Thailand.
Two national premieres arrive from China:
I'm so Sorry by Zhao Liang – Cina, 2021, 100′
Oscillating between essay and poem, the film questions the choice of nuclear energy in the world, letting the roar of a prophecy, a warning, resound through the eye of Zhao Liang.
Love Poem by Wang Xiaozhen – Hong Kong, 2020, 114′
The suffocating space of a car is transformed into the film set, in which a couple shatters their story of love in a thousand pieces.
The project also includes a focus on independent Japanese cinema, with a selection of feature films that observe, through genre cinema, the effects of the pandemic in current production:
The Day of Destruction by Toshiaki Toyoda – Giappone, 2020, 57′
A hallucinatory tale about a mining village hit by an epidemic.
Extraneous Matter Complete Edition by Ken'ichi Ugana – Giappone, 2021, 61′
The definitive version of a long production of short films shot in 2019, distorted and reconstructed by the pandemic. In the sexual crisis of a couple, the young woman protagonist is attracted to a strange creature with alien features and the numerous tentacles that hides in her house.
Honeymoon by Yu Araki – Giappone, 2021, 29′
Inspired by Puccini's work Madame Butterfly, the director follows two lovers of Japan such as the eccentric photographer Adolf de Meyer and the American anthropologist Frederick Starr, in a mix of etymology, history, ethnography.
Roar by Ryô Katayama – Giappone, 2019, 99′
Two parallel stories in the city of Fukui on the west coast of Japan, in the wake of a hideous crime.
Side events
The Japanese Notebooks Exhibition. A cameo of Igort‘s illustrations at the “Stefano Cardu” Siamese Art Museum in Cagliari is the tribute that Across Asia Film Festival dedicates until January 31, 2022 to one of the Sardinian artists who have explored the Far East with greater rigor and in particular Japanese culture. On display will be a selection of tables, authenticated and signed, from the third and last volume of the Japanese Quaderni (Oblomov Edizioni, 2020), dedicated to extraordinary encounters with cursed authors, officiants of decadent and extreme beauty, irreverent Grand Masters, pioneers of that story in images that first took the name of kibyoshi, ukiyo-e, muzan-e then, to finally become manga or anime: Santo Kyoden, Yoshitoshi, Maruo, Seiu Ito and Yamamoto.
On Friday 18 December at 6.00 pm at the EXMA in Cagliari, in collaboration with UBIK, Igort will meet the public and present the entire volume in conversation with journalists Fabio Canessa and Luca Mirarchi.
The meeting on Saturday 19 December is also dedicated to comics: at 11.30 at EXMA Splendidi Reietti (add editore, 2021) will be presented, with the original title Chinese Queer, by the artist Seven, set in the maze of a metropolis where neon lights illuminate the fragments of an ultraviolent and underground world. The tender and depraved protagonists of Splendidi Reietti listen to punk music and old eighties hits, collect online meetings on social media and live streaming sites, attend clubs and public baths: they try, every day, to resist the relentless drift of life.
You can find Information and the complete program on the Official Website, HERE
