(THR) Bodies at Rest, the Chinese-language crime thriller by transplanted Hollywood director Renny Harlin, will open the 43rd Hong Kong International Film Festival on March 18. The festival will close with French auteur François Ozon’s drama By the Grace of God.
Bodies at Rest, from Hong Kong’s Media Asia, is Harlin’s second feature film fully in Mandarin after Alibaba’s Legend of the Ancient Sword in 2018. The thriller stars award-winning Hong Kong actor Nick Cheung and Taiwanese actor Richie Jen. Harlin has relocated to China in the mid-2010s.
Ozon’s real-life drama about a Catholic Church sexual abuse case in France won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. The screening in Hong Kong will be the film’s Asia premiere.
The festival will also showcase in its gala presentations The Shadow Play by Chinese director Lou Ye, First Night Nerves, Hong Kong master of femininity Stanley Kwan’s return to feature film after nearly a decade with a powerhouse female cast, WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson, Berlinale Golden Bear winner Synonyms by Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, and a special concert jointly presented with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra to celebrate the film scores of British composer Michael Nyman.
Featuring over 230 films from 63 countries and regions, the HKIFF will honour the legend of Hong Kong action cinema Sammo Hung as its Filmmaker in Focus with a 10-title retrospective of the screen icon and a seminar open to the public.
Masterclasses headlined by two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong, and Chinese six generation actor-director Jiang Wen will also give a stage for the filmmakers to share their creative insights with the public.
To commemorate the centenary of Korean cinema, the festival has dedicated a sidebar to 10 South Korea classics and new films, including My Mother and Her Guest (1961) by Shin Sang-ok and Ieodo (1977) by Kim Ki-young.
A new section for Chinese-language films has been added to the Firebird Award - Young Cinema Competition, to be judged by a panel headed by Jiang Wen, alongside Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Ka-fai, Chinese actress Yu Nan, and film scholar David Bordwell.
Under the new executive directorship of former film executive and producer Albert Lee, the HKIFF will be held from March 18 to April 1 2019.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter by