It all began with a gamble. It was 1999, and the idea of bringing mainstream Asian cinema to the heart of Friuli seemed to many an unlikely venture. Udine was small, the world was big, and Asia seemed far away...
Twenty-eight editions later, that gamble has become a certainty. The
Far East Film Festival is now one of the most eagerly-anticipated film events in Europe: a place where cinema is not just entertainment but also encounter, discovery and dialogue.
The
28th Far East Film Festival carries on this tradition with the energy of those who have never stopped believing in the power of images. The new official image, designed by award-winning American illustrator
Andy Rementer (with art director
Margherita Urbani) and animated by motion designer
Ernesto Zanotti, is a visual manifesto of this philosophy: a gallery of diverse, bright, curious faces looking at and recognising each other. The faces of
Far Easters. The faces of those who still believe that sitting together in front of a screen in a dark room is one of the most human acts there is.
75 titles,
52 in competition and
23 out of competition,
from 12 countries:
8 world premieres,
18 international premieres,
21 European premieres and
20 Italian premieres. Nine days of screenings from morning to night, of meetings, of stars walking the red carpet, and of over a hundred parallel events—workshops, markets, cosplay—spread throughout the heart of Udine to once again transform the city into the
largest Asian outpost in Europe.
On the 24th of April we kick off in Singapore with Anthony Chen's powerful family drama
We are All Strangers, tomorrow at 7:30 PM at the Teatro Giovanni da Udine theatre. And the film's director and its star
YEO Yann Yann will be our special guests! But the evening has big surprises and thrills in store for its finale too: at 10:30 PM, it's the turn of the latest cinematic effort from the diabolical mind of Giddens Ko:
Kung Fu! Paying homage to the classic culture of kung fu, a film packed with astonishing ingenuity and moments of wackiness and violence reminiscent of Stephen Chow, Dragon Ball and Miike Takashi. Already a cult classic!
As for the
Golden Mulberry Awards, this year's festival features three names that just by themselves would be enough for an entire season. The first is
Fan Bingbing: Chinese diva, producer and global style icon, a favourite of the FEFF since 2004, when we presented
Feng Xiaogang's
Cell Phone. On the 1st of May she will be receiving the
Golden Mulberry Award for Outstanding Achievement in recognition of thirty years of cinema, lived without ever repeating herself—from the ghosts of
The Matrimony to the ferocious satire of
I Am Not Madame Bovary, and from Hollywood to Cannes. The second is
Yakusho Koji: seventy years of age carried with the grace of a man who has seen forty pass by on set,
Best Actor at Cannes 2023 with Wim Wenders's
Perfect Days, and a living symbol of a Japanese cinema who never ceases to amaze. He will also be on stage at the Teatro Nuovo "Giovanni da Udine" theatre to receive the
Golden Mulberry Lifetime Achievement Award on the 25th of April as part of the tribute
Yakusho Koji: Perfect Roles, organised in collaboration with the
Japanese Cultural Institute in Rome / The Japan Foundation and
ANA (All Nippon Airways): eight films in Udine and in Rome
—The Blood of Wolves, The Woodsman and the Rain, The Eel, Perfect Days, Tampopo, Under the Open Sky, 13 Assassins, and
Cure—as well as a public conversation between Yakusho and writer and translator
Giorgio Amitrano in Rome on the 28th of April.
But the
25th of April will also be a memorable evening because
Wim Wenders will be one of its guests of honour. The director and co-writer of
Perfect Days will be traveling across Europe to perform a simple yet extraordinary gesture: personally honouring the man who made his film great! And that evening, after the ceremony,
Perfect Days will return to the big screen where it deserves to be.
Closing the festival on the
2nd of May is the third giant:
Yuen Woo-ping, the
Eighth Master, born in 1945, a director and martial arts choreographer who forever changed the way cinema depicts a body in motion. He's the man behind Neo dodging bullets as if time has stopped,
Kill Bill's The Bride fighting like a warrior goddess, and the warriors in
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon flying through the bamboo as if gravity were just an opinion. The
Golden Mulberry Lifetime Achievement Award is the least we owe him. And after the ceremony? After the ceremony,
Blades of the Guardians—his latest film, a breathtaking wuxia epic inspired by comic book series
Biao Ren—will close FEFF 28 the way only a Yuen Woo-ping film can: with adrenaline, amazement, and the feeling that action cinema hasn't yet said all it has to say.
Twenty-eight editions. Thousands of films. Tens of thousands of people who have walked through the doors of the Teatro Nuovo with the same eagerness in their eyes. FEFF 28 is ready to add a new chapter to this story—and it can't wait to share it with you.
PROGRAMME FOR THE 24th OF APRIL
14.00
HULA GIRLS, LEE Sang-il,
comedy, Japan 2006/4K 2025, European Premiere
Tribute To Lee Sang-Il
Based on a true story,
Hula Girls begins in 1965 in the desolate mining town of Iwaki, when one of the local notables has the bright idea of responding to the recession by opening a Hawaiian Center as a tourist attraction. And then he hires a professional dancer from Tokyo...
16.20
UNDER THE OPEN SKY, Nishikawa Miwa,
drama, Japan 2020
Yakusho Koji: Perfect Roles
A middle-aged former yakuza played by Yakusho Koji is released after serving 13 years for murder. Hoping to find his mother, from whom he was separated as a child, he applies to appear on a TV show: a gripping contemporary social drama!
19.30
WE ARE ALL STRANGERS, Anthony Chen,
drama, Singapore 2026, Italian Premiere
22.30
KUNG FU, Giddens Ko,
Crazy Love Letter to Wuxia, International Festival Premiere
Two teenage losers, Yuen and Yi, help a homeless man... in exchange, the "weirdo" rewards them by initiating them into martial arts and giving them superhuman powers. But what will the consequences be? Don't let your guard down, because with Giddens there's always a shock just around the corner!