The London East Asia Film Festival is set to release a slew of offerings from the region on moviegoers in the UK capital from next week.
Festival director Hyejung Jeon said the event will help London audiences better understand the nations and regions and people of East Asia.
"The London East Asia Film Festival aims to introduce Asian films that direct the audience to really understand the culture," she said of the festival, which launches on Thursday, Oct 20. "It will focus on the filmmakers' perspectives through conversations, instead of showing Asian cinema merely as a variation from European and American films."
It will be the first such event, although a smaller proto-festival was staged last year. Hyejung Jeon believes it will have more influence as a region-wide showcase for films from several countries than nation-specific festivals can achieve.
"I hope the people of London discover the distinction and individuality between different countries within East Asia," she said.
The festival will open with the UK premiere of The Age of Shadows at the Odeon Leicester Square in central London's cinema and theater district. The film is South Korea's submission for an Academy Award this year in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The 2016 action thriller is set in the 1930s and was directed by Kim Jee-woon. It stars Song Kang-ho and Gong Yoo.
The 11-day festival will close on Sunday, Oct 30 with the action movie Three by Hong Kong director Johnnie To. It will be screened at the Ham Yard Hotel Cinema. The film tells the story of a gangster who is shot and injured during an interrogation and the cat-and-mouse efforts of a police detective to capture his entire gang.
In all, 40 films - from South Korea, Japan, China and Southeast Asia - will be screened at venues including the Curzon Soho, Picturehouse Central, ICA, BFI, Regent Street Cinema and Ritzy in Brixton.
Films will be grouped into five strands: Official Selection, Competition, Retrospective, Stories of Women, and Film Festival Focus. The Competition category will feature movies from directors who have three films or less under their belts, while the Retrospective strand will feature films made by the South Korean director Park Chan-wook.
Chinese films that will be screened during the festival include Nessun Dorma, a 2016 psychological thriller from Hong Kong director Herman Yau that stars Gordon Lam, Andy Hui and Janice Man, and De Lan, a 2016 movie by Liu Jie. Directors from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Japan, including Jia Zhangke, Nakata Hideo, Alec Su and Stanley Kwan, collaborated on Beautiful 2016, which will be shown as part of the Official Selection strand. Organizers say it is a great example of the sort of cultural diversity they want to celebrate throughout the festival.
Many of the screenings will be followed by appearances by filmmakers, actors, critics and academics who will take part in question-and-answer sessions.
Hyejung Jeon hopes the festival will grow to become a showcase for East Asian culture in the UK and says she wants it to offer a "point of access" for people in the UK who are interested in the region.
