Locarno Winner Woo Ming Jin Wraps Telepathic Twins Film ‘The Fox King’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Gospel of the Beast,” a film from The Philippines director Sheron Dayoc, was named the best narrative feature at the Bali International Film Festival (aka Balinale) which concludes Friday. The film features a 15-year-old boy who accidentally kills a classmate, runs away and sets up an unlikely relationship with a man he barely knows.

Fans of A Murder at the End of the World rejoice! Brit Marling, who created the show with her longtime collaborator Zal Batmanglij, is game to take the limited series further. Possibly as far as Tokyo…

Voice of Baceprot will play Glastonbury – making them the first Indonesian band to play the festival in its history. NME caught up with the metal band to talk about the career milestone, their decision to go independent, and more in the interview below.On Glasto’s Friday morning (June 28) VOB will kick things off at Woodsies, the area Glastonbury inaugurated last year following a rebrand of its iconic John Peel stage.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The imminently upcoming Sydney Film Festival has added eight titles that premiered at Cannes to its lineup. They are: Guan Hu’s “Black Dog”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project “Megalopolis”; Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson’s “Rumours,” starring Australia’s Cate Blanchett; documentary “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides”; “The Girl with the Needle”; and revenge thriller “Ghost Trail.” Due to demand, the SFF organizers have also added additional screenings of “The Substance,” the Demi Moore-starring film already set as the festival’s closing night title. The festival runs June 5-16.

Naman Ramachandran Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s “Dear Jassi” and Arati Kadav’s “Mrs” will open and close this year’s New York Indian Film Festival. Punjabi and English-language “Dear Jassi,” a tale of star-crossed lovers based on a true story, arrives in New York after a glittering festival run that began in 2023, at Toronto, where it won the Platform Prize.

It’s not all doom and gloom at the global box office as a handful of films reached milestones this week. 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has topped $300M worldwide, while Paramount’s IF and Sony/Alcon’s The Garfield Movie crossed the $100M mark.

The fourth season of BBC travel and adventure series Race Across the World comes to an end on Wednesday 29 May, but it has been announced that there will be a special extra episode immediately after the finale airs that gives fans a behind the scenes look at the making of the series.The show, which began on April 10, has followed five two-person teams as they race across Eastern Asia, in the hope of winning a £20,000 grand prize. Each pair has to complete the 15,000km journey from Japan to Indonesia without using air travel, and with a budget of just £1390 per person – the equivalent air fare for travelling the race route.They can work for money or for bed and board during their trip, but have no access to the internet or telephones.

Four projects have been selected as the first recipients of Indonesia‘s debut government-funded film grant, Film Matchfund.

Naman Ramachandran Indonesia’s KawanKawan Media has boarded Singaporean filmmaker Nelson Yeo‘s sophomore feature “The Drought,” it was announced at the Cannes Film Festival. Yeo’s debut feature “Dreaming & Dying” debuted at last year’s Locarno Film Festival where it won the Golden Leopard – Filmmakers of the Present and Best First Feature awards.

Ghost Cat Anzu is an intriguing conceptualization for an animated film, existing in a realm similar to Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away yet also standing as its antithesis.

Naman Ramachandran Indonesia has unveiled the four film projects that will be the pilot recipients of the country’s first government-funded film grant, Film Matchfund, at the Cannes Film Festival. As revealed by Variety, the $13 million annual fund was launched at Cannes 2023 by Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia‘s minister of education, culture, research and technology.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Recently, confirmed to star in Park Chan-wook’s new film “The Ax,” Korea’s Son Ye-jin is set as the subject of the Bucheon International Fantastic Festival (BiFan)’s annual actor focus. Previous honorees include Jeon Do-yeon, Jung Woo-sung, Kim Hye-soo, Seol Kyung-gu, and Choi Min-sik.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The 27-member European Film Agency Directors Association and the Asian Film Alliance Network, which was established this time last year and currently has seven members, have agreed to work together on topics of common interest and to jointly develop a better world film ecosystem. At a meeting this week held on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, EFAD and AFAN promised to enhance understanding and collaboration between Asian and European national film agencies. Topics included: dialog on policy and regulations; the development of the film industry in both regions; and addressing new media and challenges ahead. Separately, the founding AFAN members convened for a closed-door roundtable discussion on May 16.

XG have added new dates to their 2024 ‘The First Howl’ world tour, featuring concerts in Asia, North America, Europe and more.In March, XG announced that they would be embarking on their first-ever world tour, title ‘The First Howl’. It kicked off with a two-date show at the Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka, Japan on May 18 and 19.

NME’s compiled a list of musicians and bands performing in the continent this year, from pop heavyweights like Olivia Rodrigo and Anne-Marie to metal favourites like Arch Enemy and more.And if you’re wondering where all the K-pop concerts and fanmeets have gone – we’ve got a whole other list for them, which you can check out here. And here’s a small sample of the K-pop artists who are coming to Asia in 2024: aespa, RIIZE, (G)I-DLE and many more.If music fests are more up your alley, you can check out NME’s list of Asia festivals taking place in 2024.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Hong Kong actor Tony Leung has been set as the president of the jury that will decide the main competition prizes at the Tokyo International Film Festival later this year. “Japan is close to my heart in more ways than one. And to be involved in celebrating film in this way, is a big deal for me.

EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features has acquired U.S. rights and select international territories on upcoming thriller Last Breath, starring Woody Harrelson, Finn Cole and Simu Liu. Focus will distribute the Alex Parkinson-directed title in the U.S. with Universal Pictures International handling select territories including France, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam. 

Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF), held in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, is launching an industry event that aims to showcase Indonesian content and connect the country’s fast-expanding film industry to international markets.

Indonesia‘s Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF) will unveil its inaugural JAFF Market in December. The initiative was announced at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. This new three-day event aims to reshape the Indonesian film industry by fostering networking, innovation and collaboration among various sectors.

Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski has assembled a star-studded lineup of celebrity friends who will accompany him on a global culinary adventure in his upcoming Nat Geo docuseries No Taste Like Home. Awkwafina (A Real Bug’s Life), Henry Golding(The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), James Marsden (Jury Duty),Florence Pugh (Oppenheimer), Issa Rae(Insecure) and Justin Theroux (The Leftovers) take a journey toward cultural and personal discovery with Porowski as their gastronomic guide in the docuseries produced by Gordon Ramsay’s Studio Global Ramsay. No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowski is slated to premiere in spring 2025.