Hùng to join 2017 Tokyo International Film Festival

HA NOI — Vietnamese-born French director Tran Anh Hung will participate in the 2017 Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), which will be held from October 25 to November 3, as one of the most outstanding filmmakers in Southeast Asia.

Work by the 55-year-old director, who served as a member of the 28th TIFF jury and was the Golden Lion winner at Venice with Cyclo, will be featured in the section called Crosscut Asia #4: What’s Next from Southeast Asia, which aims to showcase Asian films with a focus on specific countries, directors or themes. 

The event will also screen works by other Southeast Asia filmmakers recommended by maestros in the same region, including Brillante Ma Mendoza from the Philippines, who has won awards at the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals and whose work was featured in Crosscut Asia in 2015; Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand, Palme d’Or winner at Cannes with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and as a visual artist, a participant in many exhibitions; and Garin Nugroho from Indonesia, who has shown 12 films at TIFF and served on the jury of the 19th TIFF.

Hung is renowned for many of his cinematic works with contemporary artistic style that have received international fame and acclaim, including Oscar-nominated The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), I Come with the Rain (2009) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000).

The TIFF is being held since 1985 as one of the 12 major film festivals of the world and also the largest film festival in Asia. The event, which includes a feature-length film competition at its core, attaches importance to actively supporting Asian films and to discovering and cultivating new film directors from all over the world.

It was held biennially until 1991 and then changed to an annual festival. — VNS