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Hong Kong Film Festival Berlin Showcases the Best of Eastern Cinema

May 15th, 2014
Hong Kong Film Fest in Berlin.jpg

News from Berlin - Berlin will host the ten-day Hong Kong Film Festival from May 21st to 31st, with a program featuring critically acclaimed new releases as well as the classics. The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Berlin (HKETO) has organized this for the third year in a row. The festival has quickly become a popular event showcasing the very best of Eastern cinema. The main attraction this year will be the viewing of ‘Internal Affairs’, the highest grossing Hong Kong film of all time, a personal favorite of director Martin Scorsese. The celebrated Hollywood filmmaker loved the film so much he did an American remake in 2006, ‘The Departed’, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Scorsese has said that Internal Affairs is “a very good example of why [he loves] Hong Kong cinema”. The film will get two screenings on May 24th and 28th, and the second and third parts of the Internal Affairs trilogy will also be shown during the festival. The opening night of the festival on Wednesday, May 21st, will feature a screening of the award-winning drama ‘Unbeatable’, which has already wowed audiences in Asia. The film will also close the festival on May 31st. Other films that will be shown include action movie ‘The White Storm’ and crime thriller ‘Blind Detective’, both of which were released in Hong Kong in 2013. Another anticipated new release is contemporary dance drama ‘The Way We Dance’, which won the Audience Award at the Asia International Film Festival Fukuoka late last year.

The Hong Kong film industry has released almost 150 films in the last three years, which means that it is the leader in terms of film production per capita in Asia. During the last decade, films from Hong Kong have won more than 400 international awards. Furthermore, Hollywood has also recently shown interest in the industry, obtaining the rights to remake some of Hong Kong’s most popular films. While the region is best known for producing action films, the industry also produces many dramas and poignant human-interest stories, written and produced by the city-state’s best writers, directors and actors. The best of Hong Kong’s diverse cinema will be on show at the ten-day Hong Kong Film Festival in Berlin from May 21st to May 31st. All movies will have English subtitles. It will be held at Kino Arsenal on Potsdamer Strasse. For more information please visit http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201311/15/P201311150704.htm.

News from Berlin - Berlin Global