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NEWS


BY LIZ SHACKLETON Hong Kong’s Mei Ah Entertain- ment is preparing to produce 1950s-set spy thriller Windseeker, to be directed by Alan Mak and star Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Mak is directing from a script


written by Felix Chong, his writing partner on the Infernal Affairs tril- ogy and directing partner on 2009 surveillance thriller Overheard. Leung will play the blind assist-


Tony Leung Chiu-wai


India on an upward curve


BY LIZ SHACKLETON India’s media and entertainment industry grew by 11% to $14.5bn (RUP652bn) in 2010, according to a report issued by KPMG at the FICCI Frames conference taking place in Mumbai this week. The industry is expected to


grow by 13% in 2011 and reach $28bn (RUP1,275bn) by 2015. All sectors registered growth


except the film industry, which has been hit by a downturn in produc- tion volumes since a funding crunch in 2009. However, the report predicts the Indian film industry will grow from $1.8bn (RUP83bn) to $2.9bn (RUP132bn) by 2015, due to an increase in mul- tiplex screens, research investment and continued cost corrections. Meanwhile, India’s TV industry


grew by 15.5% in 2010 and is expected to hit $14bn (RUP630bn) by 2015.


ant to a piano tuner who is drafted into a spying mission due to his exceptional hearing abilities. Pro-


duction is scheduled to start at the end of the year, after Leung has finished work on Derek Yee’s The Great Magician, a period mystery film announced by Emperor Motion Pictures on the first day of Filmart. Also in pre-production for Mei


Ah is period action film The Scholar Warrior, to be directed by Hong Kong martial-arts maestro Sammo Hung. Mei Ah also invested in — and has a slew of South-East Asian rights to — Wong Kar Wai’s upcoming mar-


tial-arts drama The Grand Master which is now expected to be released at the end of the year. Mei Ah also unveiled two titles


from its Beijing production team at Filmart yesterday. The Island, directed by Chung Kai Cheong, is a horror film about a reality show set on a desert island; it stars Jordan Chan and Chinese actress Yang Mi. The Palace, directed by Jingle Ma, is an adaptation of a hit Chinese TV show which will also star Yang along with Fung Shao Fung and Louis Fan.


director Kim Dong-ho met with Screen International in Hong Kong yesterday to talk about Lee’s new solo directorship. Lee and Kim had been co-festival


Lee, Kim talk Busan future B


usan International Film Festival director Lee Yong- kwan and honorary festival


directors from 2007 until Kim, the founding director, retired last year. Though the majority of festival- goers have wondered who would replace him, BIFF’s organising committee had quietly endorsed Lee as the solo director in November of last year when they confirmed Kim’s retirement and named him honorary festival director. “The thinking is that we had a


co-festival directorship of two, and when Mr Kim stepped down, we naturally reverted to one director so there wasn’t any particular need to announce it,” Lee explains.


Lee Yong-kwan “Mr Kim had been expressing


his desire to retire for several years, and we had tried to find a replacement for him. But he’s irreplaceable, so we started a collaborative system five years ago. I became co-festival director, Jay Jeon is a deputy director and Kim Ji-seok is senior programmer. Personally, I was hoping Mr Kim would stay on another year. I would have liked to have taken some time to live abroad and work on my English, but there wasn’t any


Seediq Bale set for two-part release in Asia


BY SCREENSTAFF Taiwanese film-maker’s Wei Te- sheng’s war epic Seediq Bale will be released as two films in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Wei’s produc- tion company ARS Film Produc- tions said today. The picture, set in 1930 in Tai-


wan, tells the true story of the Wushe Incident in which aborigi- nal Seediq tribe warrior Mona Rudao led his people to rebel against the Japanese occupation. Rudao’s force of 300 fought an army of 3,000 for two weeks until the tribe was annihilated by air- craft and chemical weapons. With a production budget of


$23.3m (NT$700m), the film is billed as the most expensive in Taiwanese history. Backed by Tai-


Seediq Bale n 4 Screen International at Filmart/HAF/HKIFF March 22, 2011


wan’s Central Motion Pictures Corporation, Seediq Bale stars Japanese actor Ando Masanobu, Taiwanese actress Vivian Hsu, Landy Wen and Umin Boya. It is Wei’s second feature film after his successful Cape No 7. The four-and-a-half hour Seediq


Bale will open in Taiwan in two instalments, on September 9 and September 30 respectively. CMC subsidiary Vie Vision Pictures will release the film in Taiwan. Meanwhile, Lighten Distribu-


tion will open the films in Hong Kong in two parts in October. Wei’s ARS Film Production is handling international sales on Seediq Bale, which may be edited into a shorter version for interna- tional territories.


Kim Dong-ho


time,” he adds. Lee plans to take a sabbatical from his professorship at Chung-Ang University, which will leave him free to focus solely on the festival for up to two editions. More changes are in store this


year, with the Asian Film Market moving to the Busan Exhibition & Convention Center (BEXCO) and the festival’s Busan Cinema Center to be completed in time to open the festival. “It will be a leap into the new


era. The festival team is doing well


BREAKINGNEWS For the latest film business news see ScreenDaily.com


Mei Ah gears up forWindseeker Also on Mei Ah’s slate is Wilson


Chin’s romantic drama LKF Soho and Poon Yuen-leung’s drama Hi, Fidelity which is receiving its world premiere at the ongoing Hong Kong International Film Festival (see reviews, p6). Mei Ah is also entering theatri-


cal distribution in Hong Kong and has acquired Korean titles Mid- night FM and I Saw The Devil from FineCut. The new releasing outfit, Mei


Ah Selection, is headed by Doinel Wu.


and it puts me at ease to see them at work,” says Kim, who is travelling with Lee and introducing him around the festival circuit. “We’ve met with Rotterdam,


Berlin and Cannes and even they are curious about our new festival centre. Almost everything will be housed there soon, and the important thing is to get content that befits the venue,” says Lee. The festival will focus on being representative of Asia and not just Korea or Busan. The centre’s ‘Big Roof’ is going


up later this month, and starting this year, the opening film will be screened in the centre’s indoor- outdoor area. “I remember the first time the outdoor screen went up, for Busan’s inaugural opening night. It was an emotional moment. When the opening ceremony takes place in the new festival venue, it will be a similar new start for the festival, and I have every confidence it will be a tremendous success,” smiles Kim. Jean Noh


Convergence Entertainment hasNuptials with Astro Shaw


BY LIZ SHACKLETON Los Angeles-based production company Convergence Entertain- ment is set to co-produce super- natural horror feature Nuptials Of The Dead with Malaysian film conglomerate Astro Shaw. The Chinese-language feature


is written and to be directed by Maya Lim based on her short film about the Chinese ancient prac- tice of ‘ghost marriages’. The story revolves around a young woman who searches for a ghost husband for her dead daughter’s spirit, only to have a curse placed on them. Hong Kong-based Distribution Workshop will handle interna-


tional sales on the project which is scheduled to start production in the third quarter of this year. Tim Kwok and Gayatri Su-Lin Pillai are the main producers on the film, with Lee Tae-hun of Korea’s Opus Pictures as executive producer. Convergence’s recent produc-


tion Vampire, directed by Shunji Iwai, was selected for both the Sundance and Berlin film festi- vals. The company also recently wrapped Malaysian director Dain Said’s action film Bunohan, which is being sold at Filmart by East- ernlight Films. Astro Shaw has also boarded Bunohan as a part- ner and regional distributor.


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