Financially supported by the Hong Kong Film Development Fund (HKFDF) and organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS), the HKIFF Cine Fan Programme was launched in April 2013 and based at the agnès b. CINEMA at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
With the aim to enrich and deepen the experience of Hong Kong moviegoers, the monthly programme features a variety of curated contemporary, retrospective and thematic showcases, presenting national cinemas, tributes to masters, digitally restored classics, and genre films while supporting Hong Kong films and film culture. Local and overseas filmmakers and critics are invited regularly to attend meet-the-audience sessions, conduct seminars, and join panel discussions to facilitate cultural exchange across borders.
In conjunction with the programme, the HKIFFS has introduced Cine Fan, a special privilege scheme for cineastes to enjoy ticket discounts both for the programme, and also the annual Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), the Summer International Film Festival (Summer IFF), and other associated programmes.
Date & Time: 07/02/2014 - 17/02/2014
Venue: agnès b. CINEMA
Presented & Organized: The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society
A Clockwork Orange
Date & Time: 07/02 7:30 pm, 16/02 2pm
UK, USA /1971/136mins
In English with Chinese Subtitles
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Dystopia to the max in a new world with a new language and new rules. Stanley Kubrick brought ingenious original dimensions to Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novella of a future British society gone mad, and Malcolm McDowell commandeered the part of Alex, enthralling and sickening us in raptures of sex and violence that chilled audiences (and censors and some critics) at the film’s release. Do lessons on morality emerge from this orgy of destruction to the familiar strains of Beethoven and“Singin’ in the Rain”? Is there authentic redemption in behavioral modification or is Alex simple organic on the outside, mechanical on the inside, locked in a world of twisted language, logic and evolution? Come along for the ride…
L’Atalante
Date & Time: 08/02 2:30pm, 15/02 9:45pm
France/ 1934/ 89mins
In English with Chinese Subtitles
Director: Jean Vigo
A film of deceptive modesty that has become truly beloved in the world of global cinema since its rediscovery in the 1940s. The only feature of filmmaker Jean Vigo, who died shortly afterwards at the age of 29, this simple story of a honeymoon and its misadventures on a barge travelling the Seine brought together unexpected elements of film as art: the lyrical vision of landscape, the exquisite photography of Boris Kaufman (Dziga Vertov’s brother), an empathetic score by Maurice Jaubert and authentic performances in key roles, whether young lovers or older counselor (Michel Simon from Boudu Saved From Drowning). A film of enduring charm and haunting artistry. #12 in Sight & Sound’s 2012 Greatest Films of All Time Poll
Stolen Desire
Date & Time: 08/02 5:15pm, 16/02 7:30pm
Japan/ 1958/ 92mins
In Japanese with English Subtitles
Director: Imamura Shohei
College graduate Kunida joins a theatre troupe in Osaka with grand ambitions to modernise the art of kabuki, only to find a mediocre cast obsessed about box office and philandering with their fans. After some timber workers demolish their stage, they move to a village and soon become a crowd-pleaser with their opening striptease. Despite his thwarted dreams Kunida stays there, infatuated with one of the actors’ wife, Chidori, whose younger sister happens to be equally smitten with him... Imamura’s debut is both a light-hearted romance and an affectionate portrait of the lower class’s freewheeling life, paving the way for his later, darker works.
Endless Desire
Date & Time: 08/02 7:30pm, 16/02 5:30pm
Japan/ 1958/ 101mins
In Japanese with English Subtitles
Director: Imamura Shohei
10 years after Japan’s defeat in World War II, four crooks and a mysterious woman meet at a small-town train station. Their mission: to find a barrel of morphine worth 60 million yen allegedly buried in an air-raid shelter, which has transformed into a teeming shopping district after the war. Thus begins a black comedy that involves feverish tunnel-digging, endless scheming and tragic deaths. Blending entertainment and suspense in a heist film full of twists and turns, Imamura does what he does best – expose our animal nature and the underbelly of Japan’s post-war economic boom.
Battleship Potemkin
Date & Time: 08/02 9:30pm
USSR/1925/72mins
Silent with Score
Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Eisenstein’s classic revisioning of a 1905 rebellion that prefigured the Russian Revolution became a landmark in film history not only as masterful propaganda but also as a work of art that changed our way of seeing. Nearly every scene has come to teach us and reshape our vision of cinema from generation to generation. From the innovative montages that pierce hypocrisies of political power to the images and precise editing of a massacre on the steps of Odessa, this film has haunted viewers and filmmakers. Nazi minister Goebbels admired it but it was banned for SS officers and has been censored in countries around the world, including Russia. Nonetheless, the film’s power, seduction and sheer beauty remain compelling in a new century.
#11 in Sight & Sound’s 2012 Greatest Films of All Time Poll
The Godfather
Date & Time: 09/02 2:30pm
USA/1972/175mins
In English with Chinese Subtitles
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Gangster films have been a staple of American and global cinema for more than a century. Yet this film stands apart for both its deep empathy–the human dimensions of a complex world–and the visual and narrative majesty that infuses crime, violence, choice and betrayal with Shakespearean dimensions. From unforgettable images (can we ever forget the horse’s head? The pain in Michael’s eyes?) to compelling and nuanced performances by Pacino, Brando and an incredible ensemble, Coppola began with a crime drama and produced an epic. Over half a century, this film has truly become a landmark whose qualities have become even more appreciated with sequels and diverse critical appreciation that have followed.
1973 Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Actor in a leading Role
The Profound Desire of the Gods
Date & Time: 09/027pm, 15/02 6:30pm
Japan/ 1968/ 175mins
In Japanese with English Subtitles
Director: Imamura Shohei
Imamura’s first colour film, The Profound Desire of the Gods, took him six years to conceive and two years to shoot. Unlike previous works set in wintry rural landscapes of northeastern Japan, this epic takes us to one of the sun-beaten Okinawa islands. Meet the scandalous Futori family, made up of an incestuous patriarch, his son who inherited his sexual proclivity, his retarded daughter, and another daughter who is the tribe leader’s mistress. When an engineer arrives from Tokyo to drill a well to power the sugar mill, the islanders are caught in an unforeseen clash between tradition and modernity.
#1 in 1968 Kinema Junpo’s Top 10 & Best Director
The Insect Woman
Date & Time: 14/02 7:30pm
Japan/1963/123min
In Japanese with English Subtitles
Director: Imamura Shohei
Not only was The Insect Woman the highest grossing film in Japan in the year it was released, it was an immediate critical success and lauded by Donald Richie as Imamura’s “most complete portrait of the Japanese woman as she is”. Leading a belittling but resilient life like a tenacious ant, destitute country girl Tomé toils away in a wartime mill, works as a cleaning woman during postwar occupation, and soon resorts to prostitution – all for an honest living. Hidari effortlessly portrayed the quiet determination of the unflinching heroine and became the first Japanese to win Best Actress at Berlin Film Festival.
#1 in 1963 Kinema Junpo’s Top 10
The Pornographers
Date & Time: 15/02 2:30pm
Japan/1966/128mins
In Japanese with Chinese & English Subtitles
Director: Imamura Shohei
Showing Imamura’s profound interest in what he calls “the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure” that drive daily Japanese life, The Pornographers follows Subuyan, who makes 8mm porno films under the threat of small-time gangsters and the government. Shunned by neighbors and his own family, he lives with a widow and her teenage daughter. When both women fail to fulfill his urges, he turns to blow up sex dolls... With inventive camera angles and striking visual motifs, the film is a comic satire on hampered desires of the Japanese underclass.
#2 in 1966 Kinema Junpo’s Top 10
Courtesy of The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, for further information please visit www.hkac.org.hk.
