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Shanghai Film Festival Sets Dates For Return As In-Person Event

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Shanghai International Film Festival has unveiled plans for its return to an in-person event that will mark its 25th edition and its 30th anniversary. The festival was canceled last year, due to the severe restrictions imposed on the city in reaction to a Spring flare-up in the COVID outbreak. The 2023 edition will run June 9-18, 2023, organizers confirmed on Tuesday. They said it would, “open a two-way journey between Chinese films and world films.” The Jinjue (Golden Goblet) Awards competition will this year operate across five categories: main feature film competition, Asian newcomers, documentaries, animation and short films.

EXCLUSIVE: American-European media fund APX Group has appointed film industry veteran Anthony Buckner as Director of Film and Television Distribution and Acquisition, to head up a new department created as it continues its international expansion drive.

2022, “Cryptorealism is an expression of hidden meaning revealed through layer imagery, which requires active participation by the observer.”Famous collectors of Roostaei’s work include Paul McCartney, Anthony Hopkins and Hillary Clinton. His paintings are currently on display at Beijing’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Vancouver Fine Art Gallery and the Pashmin Art Gallery in Shanghai and in Hamburg.In May 2022, he sold some of his paintings to benefit the people of Ukraine.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong-based indie sales agent Good Move Media has added Japanese music drama “Plastic” to its FilMart slate. The film is directed by Miyazaki Daisuke, the Japanese helmer behind “Yamato (California),” which had festival play in 2016, and 2019 slacker youth title “Tourism” in 2019. The new picture is the story of teenagers Juna and Ibuki, who set out to find the psychedelic rock band Exne Kedy. Exne Kedy is a fictional creation from musician Ide Kensuke, who previously released punky album “Kensuke Ide With His Mothership — Contact From Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists,” but the band is actually credited as performing and providing part of the music track in the film. “Plastic” is recently completed and headed for a theatrical release in Japan in July.

Sammo Hung will be presented with a lifetime achievement honor at the Asian Film Awards. The ceremony was back as an in-person event after a two-year absence and has shifted back to Hong Kong after previously being held in Hong Kong, Macau and Busan. Hung will accept the award on Sunday at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. Hung’s career as an actor, action choreographer, director and producer spans some 60 years. His acting credits include action comedies “Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog” and “Odd Couple,” paranormal horror comedies “Encounters of the Spooky Kind” and “The Dead and the Deadly,” comedy film series “Lucky Stars” and gangster action film “Shanghai, Shanghai.” In 1982, Hung won the best actor prize at the second Hong Kong Film Awards for his directorial effort “Carry on Pickpocket,” as well as best action choreography for “The Prodigal Son,” which he also directed and starred in.

K.J. Yossman Disney’s U.K. subsidiary is in need of a little fairy dust. The London-based outpost for the House of Mouse – The Walt Disney Company Limited – has posted a loss of almost $300 million for the financial year ending Oct. 2, 2021. The number is a significant drop on the previous year’s accounts (for the year ending Oct. 2020), which showed a restated profit of $291 million. The figure comes from the company’s financial report, which was filed at the U.K. business registrar, Companies House, on Thursday. The report represents the first full year of accounts in which Disney+ has been operational (the streaming service launched in March 2020) as well as the first full year impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Martial arts veteran Sammo Hung is to be presented with a lifetime achievement honor at the upcoming Asian Film Awards. The ceremony is back as an in-person event after a two-year absence and shifts back to Hong Kong after previously being held in Hong Kong, Macau and Busan. Hung is expected to accept the award on Sunday March 12 at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. “I’m so happy and surprised that I can still win awards these days, especially an award that affirms my entire performing career,” said Hung in a forwarded statement. He has a career as actor, action choreographer, director and producer that stretches some 60 years.

CNN Worldwide has tapped Otto Bell to oversee its creative marketing department.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong-based sales agency Golden Network Asia has amassed a large collection of advanced sales on upcoming Jackie Chan-starring film “Ride On.” The film, pitched as an action dramedy and one in which Chan pays homage to old-school stunt men, has recently been given an April 7 release date in mainland China. The date also mark’s the star’s 69th birthday. The film has already been licensed to: Well Go USA for North America; Plaion Pictures for Germany; Eagle Pictures for Italy; SPI International for Eastern Europe, Benelux and Israel; AN Media for CIS; ATV for Turkey; Phars Film for Middle East; Twin Co. for Japan; Contents Panda for South Korea; Shanghai Pictures for Malaysia; Shaw Renters for Singapore; Eagle International for Taiwan and worldwide Airline; Prima Cinema for Indonesia; Pioneer Films for the Philippines and Indo Overseas Film for India.

Taipei-based international sales company Distribution Workshop will be selling Lunar New Year hit Hidden Blade, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and Wong Ching-po’s highly-anticipated new film, The Pig, The Snake And The Pigeon, at the upcoming European Film Market (EFM) in Berlin. 

A “globetrotting” college boss racked up over twenty foreign trips before backing a redundancy scheme for staff.

The Sundance Institute has today named the jurors who will preside over awards for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The 16-person lineup features everyone from CODA star Marlee Matlin to We Need To Talk About Cosby‘s W. Kamau Bell, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton and actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan.

Rick Tuber, a TV and film editor who won an Emmy and an ACE Eddie Award for his work on NBC’s classic medical drama ER, died January 7 of a heart attack at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 69.

Terrifying images from China appear to show families burning the bodies of loved ones as Covid infections overwhelm hospitals in the country.

And, they’re back. After a series of Covid-related stops and starts, Shanghai Disneyland has again reopened today, marking the Shanghai Disney Resort’s latest return to full operations. 

Roll up, roll up, Insiders. The Deadline International team have once again been travelling the world to bring you the latest news and analysis from the global film and TV biz, with Mel and Zac both in the Middle East. Max and I actually found the TV world descending on London for once, so we didn’t have to go so far for access. Read on.

Shanghai Disneyland has again closed its gates, just four days after reopening them, in order to comply with “the requirement of pandemic prevention and control.”

Censorship concerns in China have reached boiling point as protests rage after a BBC journalist was “beaten and kicked by police” and footage showed the state broadcaster altering World Cup coverage to avoid showing mask-less crowds.

Reza Dormishian, Iranian filmmaker and producer of Dariush Mehrjui’s A Minor, which is set to have it world premiere in competition at the on-going International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, has not been granted a permit to leave Iran, so is unable to attend the event.

After several closures and reopenings throughout the pandemic, Shanghai Disneyland is again set to resume operations, on Friday November 25. The Shanghai Disney Resort said it would continue to operate with limited daily capacity and implement “enhanced health and safety measures.”

Has it really been almost a decade since Wong Kar-wai‘s last film, “The Grandmaster“? Indeed it has, as next February marks the ten-year anniversary of that film’s world premiere at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival. But now, the Hong Kong auteur returns with “Blossoms Shanghai,” which Wong says is the third part of the story he started in “In The Mood For Love” and “2046.”   READ MORE: Wong-Kari Wai Will Also Direct Episodes Of His ‘Blossoms Shanghai’ Series Which Is Finally Confirmed Based on Jin Yucheng‘s 2013 novel “Blossoms,” Wong’s upcoming film follows three Shanghai residents in the early 1960s, at the end of China’s Cultural Revolution, through to the 1990s.

Shanghai’s Disney Resort was not exactly The Happiest Place On Earth on Monday. The park abruptly shut down to comply with China’s controversial zero-Covid policy, leaving all visitors trapped inside for hours until they could show a negative test for the virus.

The Chinese economy is already struggling because of the nation’s “Zero-Covid” policy, which continues to enforce absolute shutdowns because of small Covid-19 outbreaks.

Silent era movie icon Anna May Wong is now a different kind of star. Starting Monday, her image will appear on new quarters, making her the first Asian American to appear on US currency.

EJ Panaligan editor As part of a new initiative, the United States Mint will honor Anna May Wong, star of movies such as “Shanghai Express,” by making her the first Asian American featured on U.S. currency, placing her likeness on quarters with production starting Oct. 18. The printed quarter shows an image of Wong resting on her hand, serving as a tribute to what most consider the first Chinese American movie star. She was born in 1905 in Chinatown, Los Angeles and died in 1961 of a heart attack in her Santa Monica home. Wong started her career in the entertainment business at 14 years old, talking her way into her first movie role. In the following years, she rose to stardom as among the first Asian American stars in Hollywood and appeared in more than 50 films. Though the quarter seeks to pay tribute to her career in the film industry, it also acknowledges the difficulties that came her way trying to land meaningful roles as an Asian American actress during a time where racial discrimination and commonplace practices of putting white actors in “yellowface” to portray Asian characters was prevalent. In addition, Wong’s characters were often killed in the films she acted in, which she once joked about, saying that she had already “died a thousand deaths.”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Singapore has banned the release of “#LookAtMe,” a feature film by local director Ken Kwek. The InfoComm Media Development Authority said that the film exceeds film classification guidelines because it denigrates a religious community. Supposedly based in true events, the film depicts a man who is offended by a pastor who preaches against homosexuality, but whose behavior contradicts his teachings. The protagonist’s viral video about the aberrant priest lands him in jail, causing the man’s gay identical twin to fight for justice. “#LookAtMe,” premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival and local media report that the film has been selected for next month’s Singapore International Film Festival. But the IMDA ruling means that it cannot now be shown in any form in Singapore unless Kwek is successful with an appeal.

EXCLUSIVE: Imax has inked a deal with Wanda Films, China’s largest exhibitor, to install six Imax systems in new multiplexes across top Chinese markets including Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. Wanda will also relocate and upgrade three of its existing Imax systems to forthcoming locations.

China still has much to gain from its current relationship with Russia even as the invasion of Ukraine drags on, turning Russia into an international pariah and threatening to rub off on China’s reputation as well.  "China has, in effect, doubled down on its support for the Putin war effort, and we saw this, for instance, last month when China's third rank leader went to Moscow, spoke to the State Duma, and in very clear terms, expressed Beijing's support for Russia," Gordon Change, author of "The Coming Collapse of China," told Fox News Digital.  "Then, [we] see Jinping himself when he was in Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, actually confirmed that endorsement," Chang added. "The only conclusion that we can come to is that Beijing is not backing away from Russia."  The China and Russia dynamic has remained a troubling one for the United States since even before the invasion of Ukraine started in March 2022.

Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Ho-sun Chan has launched a production company to focus on streaming content, Changin’ Pictures, with a debut slate of five projects and talent including action star Donnie Yen and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief EST Studios, the film company established this year by 88Rising co-founder Jaeson Ma and former Vice Media executive Eric Tu, has struck a partnership arrangement with China’s Hugoeast Media. The partnership is looking at an initial slate of eight projects, with EST Studios representing sales at the major film markets including the upcoming Asian Contents and Film Market and Asian Project Market at the Busan International Film Festival. EST will be the exclusive representative for Hugoeast’s titles in North America. In other territories (outside of China) it will handle them on a non-exclusive basis.

Hong Kong has selected the crime thriller Where the Wind Blows as its official submission to this year’s International Feature Oscar race.

Secret Cinema, the London-based immersive entertainment company, has been acquired by TodayTix of the U.S. plans for a national tour Stateside in 2023 and a permanent location in LA.

EXCLUSIVE: Punchdrunk, the immersive theater company behind New York City’s long-running Sleep No More production, has signed with CAA.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japan’s biggest film group Toho announced that it has taken a controlling stake in TIA (previously Toho Interactive Animation), a production company behind the “100 Nichikan Ikita Wani,” film and anime series “iii icecrin,” “iii icecrin2” “Ninja Collection” and “That Is the Bottleneck.” Originally known as I&A, the company was established in 2017 by ILCA and Anima. The name changed to TIA after Toho bought a nearly 35% from the two founders in 2020. Toho has now bought out Anima’s stake, giving it a 67.4% majority holding and cause to rename the company again, this time to Toho Animation Studio. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor An anime series based on popular open-world role-playing game “Genshin Impact” is officially in the works. HoYoverse, the Shanghai-based game developer behind “Genshin Impact,” announced a partnership with Japanese animation studio Ufotable to develop an anime based on the RPG. It also released a three-minute “concept trailer” in announcing the project (watch below). “Let’s step into this vast magical world of adventure together!” the games company tweeted Friday. “The long-term collaboration project between Genshin Impact and ufotable has begun.” The companies did not reveal an anticipated release date for the anime series, nor does the trailer provide firm clues as to what the show’s plot may center on.