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Festival will open with Lee Jong-un’s ‘Birthday’.

Far East Film Festival (Feff), the Asian cinema event held in Udine, Italy, has announced a line-up of 76 films from 12 countries for its 2019 edition (April 26-May 4).

The festival will open with Lee Jong-un’s debut feature Birthday, a story set around the Sewol ferry tragedy in South Korea when 304 passengers and crew lost their lives. The film looks at one family’s experience of public and private mourning after losing their eldest son in the disaster.

The film is produced by Lee Chang-dong, whose Burning played at Cannes last year and set...

The Far East Film Festival has revealed the full lineup for its 21st edition, which will take place in Udine, Italy from 26 April - 4 May 2019. The packed roster of 76 films from 12 different countries includes 3 world premieres, 12 international premieres and 18 European premieres. 51 of the films screening will do so in competition, including 14 films from first-time filmmakers. Guests of honour at the festival include Hong Kong legend Anthony Wong Chau Sang and Chinese diva Yao Chen. Making their worldwide debut at the festival are Nadiah Hamzah’s Malaysian cop thriller Motif, Syoutarou Kobayashi’s matrimonial drama Only the Cat Knows, and Mirai Konishi’s documentary Kampai! Sake Sisters. And they are in incredibly good company. Among this year’s competition...

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Aside from Iffr, a very happening event, two new and related international sales companies are launching in Berlin. Fortissimo and Nine Film are related genealogically, even to Iffr, because the founder of Fortissimo, Wouter Barendrecht (Rip 2009), came from Iffr where he was an expert on programming films from Asia.Wouter Barendrecht (Jerusalem International Film Festival Photos)

Wouter founded Fortissimo in 1991. Together with partner Michael Werner, another China aficionado, they introduced the west to Asian arthouse cinema. Barendrecht was also instrumental in re-vitalizing the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in 2000. He created a staff and a fanbase whose loyalty and family-like closeness has never been replicated. Today at Iffr, he is commemorated annually by the Wouter Barendrect Award of €5,000 bestowed by CineMart in conjunction with the Wouter Barendrecht Film Foundation to a filmmaker under the age of 35 who has directed three or fewer films. The prize is decided upon by...