Just curious to know if there's any news so far on this year's HKIFF? Any word on films, or retrospectives? The festival's been having a rough time lately, and I just wanted to know if there was any word on how this year was shaping up. Thanks in advance for any news.

Saw a newspaper clipping that said this year they were doing a "100 years of Chinese Cinema" retrospective, an evaluation of the best of all time, and have invited Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou to attend. Fits well with the current cliff diving of HK Cinema into mainland coproductionland.

-- Peter

i even heard Manfred Wong plans to contact Hollywood actors to take part in the awards ceremony.

I thought the 100 years of Chinese cinema tribute was for the Film Awards and an associated book. There has already been the "A Century of Chinese Cinema: Look Back in Glory" retrospective at the HKIFF - the first half screened during the 2001 film festival and then continued in the Archive with extra movies for another month or so.

The SCMP had a bit of news on the film festival last week, mentioning that they've cut the number of films. Expect between 160 and 180 movies, according to HKIFF director Peter Tsi: "A survey we did this year showed our diehard fans couldn't attend that many screenings despite the increase in the number of films showing. We are doing an experiment for next year and hope to strike a balance."

I wasn't one of the surveyed fans but I was grumpy about PICCADILLY being screened only once and in normal office hours at the last HKIFF. If less films mean fewer clashes, that should be a good thing.

Tim.

Is it necessary (and possible) to purchase tickets on line?

Here in Istanbul you need to go to the ticket booths and purchase tickets for every film you want to watch in advance (about a month before the festival). Even if you reserve on line, you still need to go to the ticket booths.

The HKIFF system is nothing like that and, yes, you can buy them online (but only if you're in Hong Kong, I think). For local orders, you wait for the programme guide, pick your movies, fill out the included ticket order form and then mail it or hand it in with your payment about a month before opening night. The online bookings are open then too. Mail bookings are taken for a couple of weeks only, counter sales open a while later and online ticketing continues, and all your tickets are mailed out. There's more info plus a section on overseas fax bookings on the last HKIFF's site here:

http://www.hkiff.org.hk/hkiff28/eng/prog/booking.html

I've always got into each film I've ordered tickets for but then I hand in my forms pretty quickly. Shows that tend to sell out faster than others include Category III films, some more anticipated Archival screenings and the opening films.

Tim.

Thank you so much for the info :)

Looks like all bookings -- regardless of whether they're overseas or local ones -- only started being accepted one month before the start of the film festival. So...when can the programme guides be expected to come out (on-line, and vis a vis in hard copy)?

Also, for those who don't yet know, next year's HKIFF will begin in March (rather than the more usual April). To be precise, it's due to run from 22nd March to 6th April, 2005; and will be part of the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo. As will the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market (Filmart) (22nd to 24th March), Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) (22nd to 24th March as well), the 3rd Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Excellence Awards (22nd to 24th March too), and Hong Kong Film Awards (27th March).

"As will the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market (Filmart) (22nd
to 24th March), Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) (22nd to 24th March as well), the 3rd Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Excellence Awards (22nd to 24th March too), and Hong Kong Film Awards (27th March)."

What ARE all these things? I know the Film Awards and the Film and TV Market, but the rest are news to me. Any hints?

I'd not heard of the Hong Kong Digital Entertainment Excellence Awards until now but they have a site at http://www.hkpc.org/hkdeea/ (patience required). The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum was started by Fortissimo Film Sales head Wouter Barendrecht in 2000 and focused on funding Asian co-productions. The 2002 one was canned during the SARS outbreak and it stopped after that, so it's being revived next year. There's a web page for it with mention of films it helped along at: http://www.haf.eexpohk.com/

The main Entertainment Expo site lists out all that's going on and adds the Independent Short Films and Video Awards, which can have some interesting submissions but its better entries are screened in the HKIFF anyway: http://www.eexpohk.com/

There's usually a press conference a bit more than a month before the event and the full site's opened then. The programme booklet's available the next day and a few days later they take the first postal and online bookings. When I hear they've released the programme, I'll post a message here.

Tim.