New territories mark an expanded outlook for this year's Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF).
The co-production market is a matchmaking service for filmmakers and financiers with the end goal of organizing co-productions and co-ventures. Portfolio this year includes veteran and new filmmakers from across Asia.
Twenty-five projects are tipped for the forum, including debuting ones from such countries as Australia, with Rachel Ward's drama "Beautiful Kate," and India, with martial arts pic "The 19th Step" by Bharatbala.
"This year's selection sees the further blossoming of HAF as new territories are participating for the first time," says newly appointed HAF director Jacob Wong. "The 2007 projects are an embodiment of Asia's finest commercial and artistic filmmaking."
Wong says the projects selected also represent a spectrum of arthouse pics as well as those that are more commercially ambitious, such as Kim Jee-woon's "The Good, the Bad and the Weird." The Korean pic "is going to be a major project" with a $10 million budget, he adds.
HAF, which falls under the Entertainment Expo umbrella along with seven other related film, music and media events, will open this year with the Hong Kong Intl. Film Festival and Filmart. HAF organizers expect 600 film professionals from all over the world, including financiers, bankers, producers, buyers, film funding bodies and distributors.
The forum is administered by the Hong Kong Intl. Film Festival Society and co-organized with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Motion Picture Industry Assn. of Hong Kong.
Projects will compete for prizes that include the HAF Awards, which gives HK$100,000 ($13,000) each to a Hong Kong and non-Hong Kong project; the Technicolor Thailand Awards, which are $13,000 prizes awarded to two HAF projects by Technicolor Thailand; and the Hong Kong Cyberport Awards, a new category that will give $13,000 to two projects courtesy of the Hong Kong Cyberport Management Co.
Past HAF projects continue to get international attention. Zhang Yang's "Getting Home" (formerly known as "Air") made its European debut in the Panorama section of the recent Berlinale. The Chinese black comedy about a poor migrant worker who tries to transport the body of a dead friend home competed in HAF 2006 and was awarded a Technicolor Thailand Post-Production Award of $13,000 for projects with the highest potential for co-financing.
The producers of "Getting Home" also signed a contract at last year's forum with Filmko Films and Fortissimo to have the pic fully financed and distributed, a first for HAF.
Another notable project from previous forums was 2005's "Invisible Waves," which received nine nominations at the 15th Thailand National Critic Awards and was Thailand's official entry for the foreign-language Oscar.
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