HAF PROFILES


» Collision Avoidance p8 » Marry Go Round p8 » Basement p8 » Intruders p10 » Crosscurrent p10


» Nature p10 » Campus Confidential p13 » Vasco Da Gama p13 » Double Life Of Chinatown p13


Collision Avoidance Hong Kong-China Dir: Flora Lau Wan-man


poor mainland driver who crosses the border every day to work for her. The idea is a continuation of Lau’s short film Dry Rain, about a Filipina maid and her employer’s son, which won best film at the Hong Kong Fresh Wave Short Film Competition in 2009. In Collision Avoidance, the trophy wife struggles to keep


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up a facade of affluence after her husband runs into financial trouble, while the driver is searching for a way to smuggle his pregnant wife over the border to give birth in Hong Kong. Both are trapped by their place in society. “The tone of the film is essentially drama with black


humour,” explains Lau. “I am paying close attention to the details of the characters’ lives to portray the normality of life that could seem absurd at times, depending on the characters’ emotional state as well as the world and situation they are in. The film also shows how the characters can have such different perspectives of each other compared to the way they want to be seen.” The film is being produced by Hong Kong-based


Shadow Puppet Productions, established for this project by producer Flora Goh. Melissa Lee, who is based between Beijing and Los Angeles, is also attached as a producer. Goh was previously marketing director of distributor


UIP in Singapore and was associate producer on Autumn In March, directed by Singapore’s Huang Yiliang. Lee’s credits include Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The producers have just started financing the film.


Until January this year, Lau was polishing the script at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam. Goh says she is looking for funds, co-producers and a sales agent at HAF. Liz Shackleton


COLLISIONAVOIDANCE


Budget $600,000 Finance raised to date None Contact Flora Goh, Shadow Puppet Productions, floragoh@gmail.com


n 8 Screen International at Filmart/HAF/HKIFF March 22, 2011


au’s debut feature looks at the similarities between two characters from opposite ends of China’s social spectrum — a rich Hong Kong housewife and the


Marry Go Round Taiwan Dir: Cheng Fen-fen


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nown for her romantic comedy Hear Me, which was the top-grossing local film at the Taiwanese box office in 2009, Taipei-based Cheng Fen-fen is


returning to the comedy genre for her new project. With elements of satire and drama, Marry Go Round is


about a country girl who comes to Shanghai to pursue a career in showbusiness. After being rejected at a number of auditions, she sets up a ‘husband wanted’ tent on the street and soon becomes an internet sensation and the subject of a TV show. As it is all part of a self-promotion plan, she never takes


her pursuers seriously until she falls for a Hong Kong man who sends her a love song every day — only to discover his pursuit of her is also part of a promotional stunt. “On one hand, I was intrigued by a kind of


phenomenon caused by the one-child policy. A lot of young people in mainland China today can’t find a marriage partner. And they resort to anything to solve the problem,” says Cheng, who also wants to explore China’s young poor, who “would give whatever it takes to gain fame and fortune”. Marry Go Round will be Cheng’s first mainland


Chinese story and will be shot entirely in China. The film is produced by Taipei-based James Liu, Beijing-based Sunday Sun and Chen herself. Liu’s Joint Entertainment has invested $100,000 in the


film, currently at script stage and budgeted at $1m. Together with Sunday Sun’s Beijing-based Enterprising Dragon, the team hopes to find the rest of the $1m budget at HAF, preferably from Chinese investors and potential co-production partners. The cast will be mostly mainland Chinese actors, though none is confirmed at this stage.


Sen-lun Yu MARRYGOROUND


Budget $1m Finance raised to date $100,000 Contact James Liu, Joint Entertainment International, james@j-ent.com.tw


BASEMENT


Budget $1.5m Finance raised to date $500,000 Contact Kate Dai, Beijing East Light Film Co, kate@eastlightfilm.com


Basement China Dir: Zhao Fei


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rt director-turned-filmmaker Zhao Fei is making his feature debut with a witty black comedy set in contemporary China.


Taking place predominantly in the basement of a


nightclub, the story will start with two construction workers waking up drunk and finding an attractive young woman tied up next to them. The woman has faked her kidnapping in order to scam


her rich mother — but her plan goes awry and all three are stuck in the basement as each tries to come out on top. The girl wants her ransom, one worker wants more money from the mother and the other worker finds himself falling for the girl. Zhao says he plans to shoot


the film in the summer. “I want to create a humid and fidgety feeling in the film, especially for the basement scenes,” he says. “In a closed environment, facing the temptation of money and lust, I want to make people see how these characters react based on instincts and desires.” Zhao, whose credits as an art director include Liu Hao’s


‘I want to create a humid and fidgety feel in


the film’ Zhao Fei


Two Great Sheep and Young & Clueless by Tang Danian, began to direct Chinese-language stage plays in 2007, such as A Village Of Possibility and Yeshi Of Distant Land. Basement is at script stage, with Beijing East Light Film


investing a third of the project’s $1.5m budget. Zhao would like Fan Bingbing to play the leading woman, but no cast is finalised at this stage. Chris Liu, producer of Lu Yue’s award-winning 13


Princess Trees and Wang Yuelun’s hit comedy Almost Perfect will produce.


Sen-lun Yu


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