Festival Launch
CUEAFS Launches East Winds, Honours Dear Friend The second edition of East Winds Film
Festival was officially launched on 1 February 2012 in the Ellen Terry Building of Coventry University. Alongside screening one of the films from the Miki Satoshi collection – ‘Instant Swamp’ – Spencer Murphy and Third Window Films’ Managing Director Adam Torel presented the festival programme to the university students (read about the programme on Pages 5,6 and 7). This year’s edition of the festival will run under the official sponsorship of Infiniti Cars by Nissan and features some high-profile guests and successful films, which is a delight to CUEAFS and a testament for the standard of work the society has been delivering. Spencer Murphy expressed his content with the festival’s programme this year: “I’m delighted by the massive strides made
this year in attracting some of the big hitters of South East Asian cinema. Herman Yau is one of my favourite directors so I’m delighted that we will be bringing him to Coventry. The broad range and quality of the films we have this year is very impressive. European Premieres of some major films is quite an achievement for a film festival as young as this one.” East Winds will also continue to be
CUEAFS’s way to commemorating and honouring a dear friend and colleague, Nadia Baird, who passed away on 1 February 2011, exactly a year before the festival launch. Nadia was an extraordinary person, who had impressed everyone who knew her with her immense intelligence, her vast knowledge of many areas and her incredible zest for life. “Nadia, I miss your energy – it was
contagious; I miss your passion – it was uplifting”, said Nadia’s mother, Dalal. “I often wonder what went on in your beautiful mind because your wisdom and insight were way beyond your tender years.”
Do you still remember? That summer
That most splendid Most lonely of starry nights...
‘Starry Starry Night’ (2011) Directed by Tom Lin
Asia Exposure, Issue 3
By Antoniya Petkova
“This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you...”
‘Starry Starry Night’ (1971) Lyrics by Don McLean
In addition to dedicating the closing festival film – the Taiwan and China co-production ‘Starry Starry Night’- to the memory of Nadia, the society will introduce the annual Nadia Baird Award, which will aim to raise awareness of her achievements, passions and her brief but to-the-full life in Coventry, and to carry her
memory in time through the society’s activities. “The screening is a testimony to Nadia
and to her Family who attended the festival last year, and our way of showing that she will not be forgotten by the society”, commented Spencer Murphy. “The award will mark her contribution and prove a fitting legacy which reflects the underlying ethos of the East Asian Film society.” Dalal was pleased with CUEAFS’s decision:
“The dedication to Nadia and the choice of movie is the best present anyone can give me. I want to thank Nadia’s lecturers and friends and colleagues at Coventry University and at the East Asian Film Society for honouring her memory and acknowledging her achievements. A very special thank you goes to them.” Through the beauty and magic in Tom
Lin’s ‘Starry Starry Night’, which shares a title with what was for Nadia a much beloved song by Don McLean, CUEAFS will hope not only to show everyone what Nadia meant to all members, but also to tell her she will always be carried in our hearts.
“To me
you are not gone”, is how Dalal put it. “You simply exist in another dimension and our journey on the spiritual level has just begun.”
‘Starry Starry Night’ , closing film and dedication to Nadia Baird;
image from
hkmovieposter.blogspot.com
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