CJ ENM Poised to Reveal Indonesia Slate – Busan ACFM

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Six film projects currently at development stage have been selected to take part in a workshop session as part of mylab+@Jogja next month. The six share a common characteristic of Indonesian co-production and a recurring theme of luminescence. “This theme underscores the importance of having the distinctive light of Asian cinema arise from its own characteristics.

Manchester United are preparing to sharpen up their shooting boots for the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon (3.30pm). Following a tricky start to the season, Erik ten Hag and his team have now won three straight games in all competitions heading into that cross-city showdown.

Mumbai Film Fest To Honor Luca Guadagnino & Mani Ratnam

Marta Balaga Following musical sequences in her latest doc “Vika!,” Polish director Agnieszka Zwiefka will turn to animation for an upcoming project under the working title “Runa.” “What can I say? I really like fusion cuisine,” she laughs. “I like hybrid films, because this division between documentary and fiction is completely pointless. I see documentary as a very capacious bag.

Jordan Moreau The International Documentary Association announced the 17 feature-length and 25 short documentaries included on the shortlists for the 39th IDA Documentary Awards, which will be held during the week of Dec. 11in Los Angeles.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Acclaimed film-making duo Kamila Andini and Ifa Isfansyah take a calculatedly side-on approach to Indonesian societal history in “Cigarette Girl,” a new Netflix series that releases on Nov.1 and which premiered its first episodes at the Busan International Film Festival earlier this month. Starting with a wealthy family about to lose its aging patriarch in 2001, the series uses flashbacks to the 1960s to uncover not only the origins of the family’s herbal cigarette or ‘Kretek’ fortune, but also the hidden romance underlying it. And it highlights the overbearing and only slowly changing societal pressures placed on women, from high and low ranks, even as Indonesian politics and government underwent tectonic shifts. Ahead of the Busan premiere Andini and Isfansyah told Variety how their lush and romantic treatment is both a product of changing society and a way of facing up to recent Indonesian history.Watch the new trailer here.

Indonesian filmmakers Kamila Andini and Ifa Isfansyah are making their Netflix debut with eight-part series Cigarette Girl (Gadis Kretek), which streams worldwide from November 2.

Naman Ramachandran Hansal Mehta‘s “The Buckingham Murders,” which premieres at the BFI London Film Festival, will be the first in a franchise. Written by Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor, the film follows Jasmeet Bhamra (portrayed by Kareena Kapoor Khan), a detective and mother who, after losing her own child, must investigate the murder of a 10-year-old in Buckinghamshire, going down a rabbit hole of secrets, where almost everyone in the small town becomes a suspect.

EXCLUSIVE: Indonesian actor Reza Rahadian and director Yosep Anggi Noen are attending Busan International Film Festival with their dystopian crime drama 24 Hours With Gaspar, which is receiving its world premiere in the festival’s Jiseok competition. 

Naman Ramachandran Distributor, Day for Night has acquired a trio of Asian titles for U.K. and Ireland at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market. Day for Night is acquiring the late Pema Tseden‘s “Snow Leopard” from Rediance.

Naman Ramachandran The Indonesian film industry is poised to spread its wings globally as the country’s filmmaking boom is the subject of a focus at the Busan International Film Festival. Films from the country now routinely get selected and win prizes at major international festivals. The local market in Indonesia, which has the fourth-largest population in the world with 277 million, is rapidly expanding with homegrown productions accounting for a significant share.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwanese actors King Jieh-wen and Hsueh Shih-ling and Indonesia’s Angga Yunanda are set to star in “Malice,” a multinational Asian thriller that will shoot next year. The film’s producers, actors and government backers presented the fully-assembled package to press and industry on Monday at the Busan International Film Festival. The film, pitched as “a road movie at sea,” is a dark tale of three men who put out to sea in search of a particular, large swordfish that had been rumored to have died out.

Taiwanese actors Jieh-Wen King and Hsueh Shih-Ling and Indonesian actor Angga Yunanda have been cast in Lim Lungyin’s action adventure Malice, an amitious co-production between Taiwan, Czech Republic and Indonesia.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST N8, a recently-established finance, production and rights sales company, has added a Hong Kong remake of classic film “Tape” and the LGBT comedy-drama “ASOG” to its bulging sales slate at the AFCM market that accompanies the Busan Intenational Film Festival. “Tape” tells the story of three best friends who, following an event at a graduation party that transforms their lives, reunite 15 years later where a case of blackmail forces them to confront a terrible secret from their past. The original film starred Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard and played at the Sundance, Toronto and Rotterdam festivals.In the Cantonese-language remake directed by Bizhan Tong, Selena Lee, Kenny Kwan, and Adam Pak play the contemporary characters while Mason Fung, Summer Chan, and Angus Yeung portray the characters’ younger versions. The script is written by Stephen Belber, Tong, Lee and Bonnie Lo, and is an adaptation of Belber’s own scripts from both the original film and stage play. The writers and director have significantly modernized the script to reflect advances in technology. Producers on the film include Tong, Lee and Belber.

Naman Ramachandran Distribution in Indonesia was the subject of a lively debate at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. With 277 million people, Indonesia has one of the largest populations in the world. However, geographically it is an archipelago and for its population, the country is under-screened with just 2,300 cinema screens.

Naman Ramachandran The enduring popularity of the Asian LGBT and horror genres and the relationship with giant streamer Netflix were among the topics of discussion at a lively panel focusing on distribution at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. “I hate the fact that all the producers want to work with Netflix, it is also killing international sales as well. Because if all the big titles go to Netflix, it leaves very little room for independent distributors,” said Chen Shao-Yi, general manager at Screenworks Asia.

Naman Ramachandran The renaissance in Indonesian cinema is being celebrated at the Busan International Film Festival this year with 15 films, shorts and series being showcased. Hilmar Farid, Director General of Culture at Indonesia‘s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, is leading a 50-strong delegation of filmmakers, committee members and media to the festival. Variety spoke with Farid about the country’s boom and its upcoming opportunities and challenges.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Korean content firm Showbox Corp. has added “The Killers,” an unusual anthology film, to its Busan rights sales line up. The film takes its title and themes from Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story of the same name.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Issues of cultural diversity, different Asian diaspora populations and the quest for the Asian cinematic identity came up for discussion on Thursday as the New Currents competition jury at the Busan International Film Festival prepared to get down to work. Filmmaker and academic Jung Sung-il, who is set as the jury president, appeared to invite a degree of dispute that might get the blood racing. “I have high hopes, hope for controversies and good conversations among the jurors,” he said in opening remarks.

In addition to her duties serving on the jury of Busan’s New Currents competition, U.S.-based producer Christina Oh will be meeting a group of Korean filmmakers at the festival to talk about upcoming film projects and attempt to build more bridges between the film industries of Korea and the U.S.