Far East Film 16 honors a great American distributor, the chairman of Fortissimo Films: the first outpost for Asian cinema in the West.
UDINE – After giving South Korean master Kim Dong-ho the award last year, the Far East Film Festival will honor with the 2014 Gelso d’Oro/Golden Mulberry Award another great man of cinema: American producer and distributor, the president of Fortissimo Films, Michael Werner. The very first and daringWestern outpost for Asian film culture.
Together with Dutch founder, Wouter Barendrecht, who passed away in 2009, Werner made possible the circling of films which would otherwise unlikely ever cross Festival borders, starting with the magnificent Hong Kong Express, directed by Wong Kar Wai in 1994, true love at first sight for so many viewers. A door finally opened towards the former British colony and the whole of Asia.
It is also thanks to that door that, just a few years later, Udine’s Centro Espressioni Cinematografiche explored planet Hong Kong with a monograph - the 1998 Hong Kong Film - destined to become the current Far East Film Festival. And this cinephile gratitude towards Michael Werner, Wouter Barendrecht and Fortissimo will take on the symbolic form of the Gelso d’Oro/Golden Mulberry Award. This award does not just honor the careers of actors and directors, as in the past with Johnnie To, but it covers each and every role in the film machine and industry.
So, there it is, Fortissimo Films. And here, thrown together, are some of the masterpieces from its catalog: Air Doll by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japan, 2009), All About Lili Chou-Chou by Shunji Iwai (Japan, 2001), Bangkok Dangerous by Danny & Oxide Pang (Thailand, 2000), Dream Home by Pang Ho-cheung (Hong Kong, 2010), Made in Hong Kong by Fruit Chan (Hong Kong, 1996), Tears Of The Black Tiger by Wisit Sasanatieng (Thailand 2000), Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Japan, 2008).
The Gelso d’Oro/Golden MulberryAward ceremony will take place on Wednesday April 26th on the stage of Teatro Nuovo, before the screening of The Midnight After, the latest work of art by Fruit Chan.