Afternoon Delight! Dir Arvin Chen Country of origin Taiwan
One of Taiwan’s most promising young film-makers, Arvin Chen’s debut feature Au Revoir Taipei was execu- tive produced by Wim Wenders and won the NETPAC Asian Film Award at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival. Chen was also one of 10 Taiwanese directors to contribute shorts to last year’s portmanteau feature 10+10. Like his first film, Afternoon Delight! is a Taipei-set
romantic comedy, but this time the emphasis will be on drama and character interaction — as opposed to the slick and stylish visuals of Au Revoir Taipei. Chen was inspired to write Afternoon Delight! after
hearing about a recent Taiwanese trend for gay men and women who came out of the closet as young adults to revert to straight lives in order to get married and have children. The story’s central character is a middle-class 39-year-
old married father, whose decision to turn his back on his gay past is called into question when he encounters a handsome young flight attendant. Chen believes the film is less about being gay than
about how a man makes life choices and deals with con- flicts, the pursuit of love, age and responsibility. He plans to cast a well-known Taiwanese singer in the lead role. One Production Film Company’s Lee Lieh describes
the project as “distinct” from Au Revoir Taipei. “It is a warmer and more mature story and a new challenge for Arvin, and it’s the main reason I wanted to work with him,” says Lieh, who is also showcasing City Of The Lost Things at HAF. Currently in pre-production, shooting on Afternoon
Delight! is scheduled for this summer. Lee is confident she will be able to secure funding for the film in Taiwan, but is hoping to meet potential buyers and distributors here at HAF.
Sen-lun Yu Afternoon Delight!
Budget $850,000 Finance raised to date None Contact Lee Lieh, One Production Film Company
leelieh329@yahoo.com.tw
You’re A Big Girl Now
Budget $2m Finance raised to date $5,000 from Sundance Creative Producing Lab Contact Mynette Louie, Syncopated Films
mynette@syncopatedfilms.com
n 10 Screen International at Filmart March 21, 2012 Balloon
Budget $400,000 Finance raised to date $150,000 from Beijing Himalaya Audio & Visual Culture Communication Contact Sangye Gyamtso, Beijing Himalaya Audio & Visual Culture Communication
You’re A Big Girl Now Dir Tze Chun Country of origin US-Malaysia
Chinese-American film-maker Tze Chun made a big impression with his debut feature Children Of Invention, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, going on to win awards at 17 film festivals and gaining rave reviews in the US following its theatrical release. His follow up, You’re A Big Girl Now, is based on the
life of his mother, who grew up in a Singaporean brothel in the 1950s, escaping to Hong Kong with the help of an older prostitute, finally saving enough money to attend university in the US before returning to Singapore to find her biological parents. “It was a very emotional experience researching and
writing the story. I hope the audience can also feel deeply the emotional journey in the story,” says Chun, who has spent two years working on the project, accumulating more than 30 hours of audio/video interviews. Visually, Chun plans to combine the cinema vérité
style with beautiful cinematography. “I hope it will look like the film Babel, which feels real yet also contains a strong story,” says the director, who compares the project to the 1970s US television series Roots in which characters struggle to escape slavery in a bid to pursue freedom. Chun is reuniting on the project with New York-based
Mynette Louie of Syncopated Films, who produced Chil- dren Of Invention. Louie also co-produced Andrew Bujal- ski’s Mutual Appreciation and operated as a consulting producer on Olivia Silver’s Arcadia. The $2m You’re A Big Girl Now has already received
$5,000 from Sundance Creative Producing Lab. Tze is revising the script and hopes to secure funding as well as co-production partners at HAF.
Sen-lun Yu
Balloon Dir Pema Tseden Country of origin China
Tibetan film-maker Pema Tseden’s first three features — The Silent Holy Stones, The Search and Old Dog — focused on the conflict between tradition and foreign cultures in modern Tibet. With his latest project, Balloon, Pema intends to dig deeper into the Tibetan family, exploring one particular family’s clash between their religious faith and the Chinese government’s family-planning policy, which restricts the number of children permitted. “The conflicts between religious faith and contempo-
rary lives are sharper and sharper in today’s Tibetan society. This is deeply affecting children or teenagers in Tibet. They are losing the guidelines in life and can become very confused,” explains Pema, whose The Silent Holy Stones picked up the prize for best directorial debut at the 2005 Golden Rooster Awards. He went on to win the special jury prize for The Search at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2009 and the Golden Dig- ital Award for Old Dog at the Hong Kong International Film Festival last year. Pema plans to shoot Balloon in a documentary style,
using non-professional actors recruited from Tibet and Tibetan regions of China. He wants to use locations including his home town of Amdo, in the Qinghai prov- ince, in order to convey a sense of the true spirit of con- temporary Tibet. He is currently revising the script, which was selected
for the 14th Screenplay Development Fund at the Ami- ens International Film Festival in 2009. Sangye Gyamtso, who produced Pema’s The Silent
Holy Stones and Old Dog, is on board as producer of the $400,000 Balloon, which has already received $150,000 from Beijing Himalaya Audio & Visual Culture Commu- nication. Shooting is scheduled to start in spring 2013. Sen-lun Yu
tibetmovie@126.com
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