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Best known for his editing work on recent Zhang Yimou films, Li Yongyi has worked with several well-known directors, receiving praise and accolades for his work. Now, he decides to take the leap into directing with his debut feature “Deep in the Mountains”, a project that he describes as an “absurd comedy wearing crime clothings”.

Deep in the Mountains is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

A newly married couple smiles for the camera. Cut to a few years later, the wife attacks the husband after an altercation and flees the house. Set in the early 1990s, “Deep in the Mountains” then proceeds to focus on Yao Sichen, a former cop who has been demoted to checking trucks before they transport their goods through the mountains. However, when a truck whose fine he had cancelled goes missing, he gets embroiled in the case looking for it and its driver,...

The 15th edition of the Beijing International Film Festival kicks off on Friday, and its competition lineup of 15 titles includes three homegrown Chinese movies.

Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Let the Bullets Fly) will serve as the head of the main competition jury that will hand out the fest’s Tiantan Awards.

Here is THR‘s closer look at the three Chinese films in this year’s Beijing competition program.

Hao Ming and Li Peiran’s Better Me, Better You

Executive producer and actress Ma Li stars as Bai Liping in the drama Better Me, Better You, described as an ode to female resilience.

The star plays a caregiver from Northeastern China who leaves a life of domestic violence behind “to seek a better life in the city, only to face repeated setbacks.” In Beijing, she meets a lonely elderly woman called Tang Shuyin, portrayed by Zhao Shuzhen.

The 30th anniversary edition of the German festival ran online.

Russian filmmaker Ivan I. Tverdovsky’s Conference won the main prize for best film at Germany’s FilmFestival Cottbus on Sunday December 13.

It is the story that incorporates the tragedy of the Dubrovka Theatre attack in Moscow in 2002 with the fate of one woman and her family. The film, which is handled internationally by Reason8 Films, had been pitched at project stage at the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus during the FilmFestival Cottbus in 2019. It made its world premiere earlier this year at Venice’s Giornate degli Autori.

It is...

Piotr Domalewski's drama I Never Cry and Ivan Ikić's Oasis were also noticed during the 30th-anniversary edition of the German festival, this year unspooling online. Prizes worth €72,000 were handed out at the 30th edition of the FilmFestival Cottbus on 12 December during an awards ceremony broadcast online, with Ivan I Tverdovskiy's Conference named Best Film. Interestingly enough, it marked the third victory for the Russian filmmaker after Corrections Class and Zoology. “It serves as proof of the successful work of our co-production market, the international standing of both events and, last but not least, the excellent interaction between the market and the festival,” observed CEO Andreas Stein, noting that Conference was previously pitched in its connecting cottbus industry sidebar. The jury, consisting of Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Axel Ranisch, Bodo Kox, Maria Trigo Teixeira and Yang Ge, called the film “a masterpiece composed in minute detail”, noting that its “whirlwind-like power...

Stars: Elizaveta Arzamasova, Sergey Garmash, Yang Ge, Kseniya Lavrova-Glinka, Andrey Nazimov, Yan Tsapnik | Written by Andrey Zolotarev | Directed by Alexander Andrushenko

Sometimes there are films that come along that tap directly into my psyche, with plots so ridiculous, so outrageous, that they engage my “must-see” synapses… The Cop Baby is one such film. After all, how could I not want to see a film with a synopsis like this:

Having failed a large covert operation and being cursed by a vengeful fortune teller, Major Chromov is trapped inside a baby’s body. The only way for Major Chromov to return to his body is to finish the operation and hunt down the most dangerous crime boss of the local mafia as a M*******King Cop Baby.

Let’s get this out of the way first… The Cop Baby is no Cop and a Half. Nope, this is not played for laughs,...

Toyon Kyyl (The Lord Eagle) by Russian director Eduard Novikov was awarded the top film prize, the Golden St. George, at the awards ceremony for the 40th Moscow International Film Festival, which drew to a close Thursday in the Russian capital.

Set in the 1930s and focused on North Russian aboriginal people, the drama was made in the North Eastern region of Yakutia, which has emerged in recent years as the country's territory of independent filmmaking.

The special jury prize went to another local film, Nu, a 64-minute-long debut feature by Yang Ge, a Chinese singer and actress who...

<em>Toyon Kyyl (The Lord Eagle) </em>by Russian director Eduard Novikov was awarded the top film prize, the Golden St. George, at the awards ceremony for the 40th <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ophelia-gaspard-at-wedding-moscow-iffs-official-selection-1098720" target="_blank">Moscow International Film Festival</a>, which drew to a close Thursday in the Russian capital.

Set in the 1930s and focused on North Russian aboriginal people, the drama was made in the North Eastern region of Yakutia, which has emerged in recent years as the country's territory of independent filmmaking.

The special jury prize went to another local film, <em>Nu</em>, a 64-minute-long debut feature by Yang Ge, a Chinese singer and actress who studied in ...