Osaka Asian Festival Sets ‘Yanagawa’ as Opening Film

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentRussia’s Roskino, the government-backed advocacy organization for the nation’s film and TV industry, has been barred from participating in Series Mania, the international TV showcase that will unfold in Northern France next month, Variety has confirmed.The Russian org was expected to host a presentation of buzzed-about content at Series Mania’s industry showcase in Lille, which runs from March 18-25. The festival disinvited Roskino after the French culture ministry vetoed its presence at at the event in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The news of Series Mania’s stand against Roskino was first reported by Screen.Roskino has in recent years ramped up its presence at key industry events, reflecting the emergence of new generation of Russian filmmakers on the international scene.

An Asian-American dancer en route to a first-performance celebration at New York’s Public Theater was attacked Wednesday night in what theater officials describe as the latest “disgusting and heartbreaking”  incident “in a long history of violence against Asian Americans.”

Despite a new rule about theatrical releases in France and filmmaker Andrew Dominik really hoping “Blonde” would debut at the event, it appears 2022 will be another year where Netflix skips the Cannes Film Festival. According to Variety, Netflix isn’t expected to debut any new films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Who were the most successful recording artists on a global basis in 2021? BTS of course. You all knew that already, obviously. But now we have confirmation from the good people at the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry who have done some maths.The trade body has handed the K-pop group its Global Recording Artist Of The Year Award which is, in case you wondered, awarded based on “an artist’s or group’s worldwide performance across digital and physical music formats during the year, from streams to vinyl, and covers their entire body of work”.IFPI actually does the maths to work out a top ten of the most successful recording artists each year, with whoever is in the number one spot getting the Global Recording Artist Of The Year Award.

Korea, one of the world’s most advanced economies and now one of the most competitive OTT markets.Now, local contender Tving reckons it has many of the tools it needs to unseat Netflix from its hard-earned position as Korea’s top dog streamer.Streaming industry numbers in Korea have risen in roughly inverse proportion to the decline of theatrical film industry. South Korea was the world’s fourth biggest box office market until 2019, but it is now chugging along with a dearth of local titles and aggregate revenues averaging a miserable $5 million per weekend so far in 2022.Consultancy, Media Partners Asia has estimated in contrast that Netflix may have ended 2021 with some six million paying subscribers (in a population of 51 million).

The first ever Sands: International Film Festival, set to be held in Scotland’s St Andrews, has revealed its line-up.

Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of the Oscar-nominated movie Licorice Pizza, is finally responding to the backlash the film received for scenes in which an actor uses a fake Asian accent.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Osaka Asian Film Festival has unveiled its biggest ever program – a total of 76 films – to unspool next month (March 10-20, 2022).Its competition section includes the acclaimed Korean debut film “Aloners,” which offers an exacting critique of the alienating effects upon life of modern capitalist economies; Hong Kong biopic “Anita”; the world premiere of “Angry Son,” which combines LGBT and mixed race themes in a heartwarming comedy; Kong Dashan’s new take on “Journey to the West,” as a ragtag group of people on a UFO hunt; “Mama’s Affair,” the second film by Kearen Pang, whose 2017 debut “29+1” won Osaka’s audience award, “No Land’s Man” from Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and festival circuit hit “Barbarian Invasion.” The spotlight section includes ten titles. Among them are “The Ground Beneath her Feet” from Bangladesh’s Mohammad Rabby Mridha; “A Room of Her own” from China’s Xie Yiran; and Carlo Francisco Manatad’s “Whether the Weather is Fine.”The largest component section is the twenty-title Indie Forum, a platform for Japanese indie films that allow the winner to claim the Japan Cuts Award.

The New York Times is being taken to the woodshed on social media for using the term “overrepresented” in an article on Asians in figure skating.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefBlackOps Studios Asia from the Philippines, Story Arch Pictures from the U.S. and Agog Film from Hong Kong have joined forces to develop, produce and finance a slate of genre movies that target the streaming marketplace.The 16-title slate comprises nine films and seven series in the action, horror and sci-fi genres, with 11 flowing from BlackOps, two from Story Arch and three from Agog.

It’s a neat conceit, making the directing colossus of 1970s German cinema into the star of his own show. Peter Von Kant, the opening film of the Berlin Film Festival, is “freely adapted” by French director François Ozon from The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s highly stylized 1972 story of three women locked in a toxic triangle of love, jealousy, domination and submission. The storyline and much of the dialogue, is the same; where Ozon shakes it up is by making the trio all men. 

Naomi Osaka is the world’s highest-earning female athlete. The Japanese tennis player appeared in Forbes Magazine’s ranking this past Thursday, earning $57.3 million in prize money and endorsements over the course of the past year.Naomi Osaka acknowledges young fan after winning her first 2021 US Open matchNaomi Osaka’s dream car is the girliest, most glamorous, and magical ride everA post shared by 大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka)The Forbes list showed that the top-earning female athletes were all tennis players, with Osaka occupying first place by a significant margin, followed by Serena and Venus Williams in second and third place, earning $45.9 million and $11.3 million, respectively.

Married at First Sight Australia bride Selina Chhaur says she was blindsided by her new husband Cody Bromley’s admission that she "wasn’t something I normally go for."WATCH: Cody tells Selina he's not attracted to her on their honeymoonIn the emotionally charged episode, which aired tonight, Chhaur confronted Bromley about the real reason he isn’t attracted to her, sparking a race row that reverberates through the other couples and leaves the experts stunned.“It came as a massive shock to me and it was really upsetting,’’ Chhaur, 32, tells WHO. “He did judge the book by its cover.’’After getting off to a rocky start, during which the personal trainer from Sydney’s Northern Beaches admitted that he was struggling with the lack of sexual attraction to his bride, hairdresser Chhaur decides to “address the elephant in the room’’ and asks if it’s because of her nationality.Cody and Selina have struggled with the issue since their wedding day."I asked him the question, that was actually really hard, and I guess I was a little naïve thinking that no it wouldn’t be that...

Naman Ramachandran Zhang Lu’s “Yanagawa” (China), Hong Sung-eun’s “Aloners” (South Korea) and Fujimoto Akio’s “Along the Sea” (Japan/Vietnam) were among the top award winners at France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas. “Yanagawa,” which opened the 2021 Pingyao Film Festival, won the Golden Cyclo, the festival’s top honor awarded by the international jury.

Black Bitch campaigners are staging a third rally this weekend, saying they have “no intention of giving up the fight”.

Anna Marie de la Fuente International sales, distribution and production company Axxon Media has picked up a troika of films ahead of Berlinale. Leading the pack is Askar Uzabayev’s “Happiness” (“Bakhyt”) from Kazakhstan, which world premieres in the festival’s Panorama section.Making its market debut at the EFM is Algeria-set “Soula,” written and directed by Salah Issaad, a contender at the Red Sea Festival in Jeddah last December.The third film is Amalric Gérard’s French burlesque comedy “Public Enemy No.

EXCLUSIVE: Freeform has picked up to pilot AZNBBGRL, an hourlong drama from Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant), Dinh Thai (Wu-Tang: An American Saga), producer Melvin Mar (Fresh Off the Boat) and 20th Television.

Who would have guessed that a pet psychic would be so spot on??