The most eccentric love story of the year gets its world premiere at FEFF 22!
It's from Taiwan, it was shot on an iPhone and it's destined to become a cult movie.
A boy and a girl. He - Po-ching - suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces him to constantly wash his hands. She - Ching - suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces her to cover herself up from head to toe as though she's trying to survive germ warfare. For society at large they're just a couple of weirdos, but for fate they're soul mates who sooner or later are destined to meet. And when they do, it sets in motion a bizarre sentimental short circuit...
The collision of these two oddballs is what kicks off the strangest film of the season:
I WeirDO (what else?!), produced by the Activator Marketing Company and shot entirely on an iPhone XS by Taiwanese first-time director
Liao Ming-yi. It's a
romantic comedy that's as
eccentric as it is
irresistible: a
brightly-coloured pop fairy tale that, to the great delight of the whole Fareaster community, will be having its world premier at the Far East Film Festival 22, which is eagerly awaited online from the 26th of June to the 4th of July.
Obviously, while we watch Po-ching and Ching grapple with their microphobias and fear of human contact and contagion (which at heart is actually fear of life
itself), it's hard to avoid thinking about the health emergency of the last few months. But
I WeirDO, which was conceived and produced back before the virus was even a blip on the horizon, doesn't immerse the viewer in the worrying news. Quite the contrary:
I WeirDO exorcises it and takes us on a long journey, both emotionally (as, with a light touch, a sense of humour and a few milligrams of sadness, it reflects on some profound universal themes) and from a purely aesthetic perspective (as Liao Ming-yi experiments with transforming shooting techniques into elements of the narrative).
Will Po-ching and Ching succeed in overcoming their respective obsessions and slowly open up to each other? Don't worry, we're not going to spoil the ending, but one thing is certain: "Face to face, heart to heart" - the slogan of the new Far East Film Festival – feels like it could have been designed especially for them!
The
streaming platform will be
www.mymovies.it, but the online FEFF won’t simply be a list of titles: it’ll be a meeting place for all Fareasters, who will be called upon to vote for the winners of the Audience Awards and to participate in the video greetings of the actors and directors and the in-depth talks with the big names of Asian cinema.