HAF PROFILES


» The Vicious Criminal p14


» A Night Of Their Own p14


» Love: 1984 p14


» Red Umbrella p16 » Monsters p16


» The MacLennan Affair p16


The Vicious Criminal Dir Kazuya Shiraishi Country of origin Japan


Japanese director Kazuya Shiraishi’s sophomore film — about a journalist who becomes obsessed with helping a death-row murderer to track down his even more psy- chotically violent mentor — may sound far fetched, but The Vicious Criminal is based on a true-life Japanese case. Based on the story of two men who killed seniors for


money — which spawned a bestselling book — the crime film marks new territory for Shiraishi, whose idiosyncratic 2009 debut Lost Paradise In Tokyo saw positive festival reviews in Japan, Busan, Dubai, Sao Paulo and Rotterdam. “It is a challenge but I’ll view the human characters


with the same eye I did on Lost Paradise. I’m very excited,” says Shiraishi, who started out as an assistant director. He has enlisted the backing of veteran Nikkatsu producer Yoshinori Chiba, who masterminded the studio’s genre label Sushi Typhoon and whose producing credits include Takashi Miike’s Fudoh: The New Generation. “I was sure of his talent after seeing Lost Paradise In


Tokyo,” says Chiba who has teamed up with Flamingo’s Satoshi Akagi to produce The Vicious Criminal. “I also think it takes too long for experienced assistant directors in Japan to make their directing debuts. I hope ADs like Shiraishi come up through the industry.” Shiraishi been influenced by directors he has worked


with, including Koji Wakamatsu on Cycling Chronicles: Landscapes The Boy Saw, which played the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2006. “Wakamatsu’s crea- tive process in reflecting his views and criticisms of soci- ety through cinema was a great influence,” says Shiraishi, who is directing from a script by Takahashi Izumi. The producers hope to fill out the budget with finan-


cial partners looking to walk on the wild side of Japanese cinema. “We believe The Vicious Criminal is strong enough to sell to the global market,” says Chiba. Jason Gray


The Vicious Criminal


Budget $1.5m Finance raised to date $700,000 Contact Naoko Komuro, Nikkatsu Corporation nkomuro@nikkatsu.co.jp


n 14 Screen International at Filmart March 19, 2012 A Night Of Their Own


Budget $315,000 Finance raised to date $80,000 from the Beijing Creative Art Talent Corporation Contact Li Shanshan, Beijing Creative Art Talent Corporation


hejshan@hotmail.com


A Night Of Their Own Dir Zhao Ye Country of origin China


Zhao Ye has proved himself to be one of the more versa- tile independent film-makers in China, with credits including animation short Cai Wei, social drama Ma Wu Jia, the 2008 Pusan Fipresci prize-winner Jalainur and 2010 family drama Last Chestnuts (produced by the renowned Japanese film-maker Naomi Kawase) under his belt. His fourth feature will be a low-budget drama about


coincidence and irony, based on an original story by his long-term film-making partner and cinematographer Zhang Yi, which centres around two police detectives who cross paths with a man in love on a chilly night in a northern Chinese city. Their lives are changed forever when a gun is fired accidentally. “The shooting is intended to be on a cold winter night.


Ideally I want it to be in the China/Russia border city Harbin. The cold and lonely atmosphere will create a nice contrast to the life sparkles that happen on that par- ticular night,” says Zhao, who has written the script which he describes as a “simple but powerful story in which the three male actors will play important roles in the main drama of the story”. Currently in pre-production, the budget is set at a


modest $315,000, with $80,000 already secured via Beijing-based Beijing Creative Art Talent Corporation, which is the production company behind the film. Charles Law and Li Shanshan are producing, with the


team hoping to secure the rest of the budget over the next few months before the scheduled shooting date in November.


Sen-lun Yu


Love: 1984 Dirs Peter Kerekes, Kazuhiro Soda Countries of origin Japan-Czech Republic-Slovokia


New York-based Japanese director Kazuhiro Soda and Slovak director Peter Kerekes met at the 2011 edition of the DOX:LAB workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark, which pairs European Union and non European Union film-makers together to co-direct documentaries. “We are from very different histories and cultures but


we wanted to work on something we could both relate to. One of Peter’s graduate students was half Japanese and half Slovak. That sparked the idea for Love: 1984,” says Soda of the documentary, exploring Japanese-Slo- vak love during the Communist era — a time that saw some Japanese students and their Slovak lovers risk crossing borders to escape oppression, while others were not reunited until after the Velvet Revolution. “During our long discussions we came up with other


topics we had in common, but this one was something only a Japanese and a Slovak director could make,” adds Kerekes, whose 2009 documentary Cooking History won prizes at Toronto’s HotDocs, Chicago and Vienna. Meanwhile, Soda is no stranger to Hong Kong, having


won the outstanding documentary prize for Mental at HKIFF in 2009 and best documentary for Peace two years later. Project initiator Patricia Drati of DOX:LAB believes


HAF is the perfect home for the feature. “We have partner- ships with various co-production markets. As Kazuhiro Soda is an Asian director, HAF was a natural choice.” Shooting is scheduled to begin in Japan in March and


the Slovak portion in April and May. With a modest budget of $50,000, Soda and Kerekes agree the project feels like “going back to our film school days”. The pair are hoping the project will appeal to co-producers and buyers keen to bring to the screen a unique aspect of Asian-European history.


Jason Gray Love: 1984


Budget $50,000 Finance raised to date $17,000 from Copenhagen’s DOX:LAB Contact Patricia Drati


DOX:LAB patricia@cphdox.dk


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