The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) has unveiled the first wave of features for its 22nd edition and announced that Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki will receive the Screen International Rising Star Asia Award.
NYAFF will run from July 14-30 at the city’s Film at Lincoln Center, with a programme of more than 60 titles, and Suzuki will be presented with the award recognising emerging talent from East Asia on July 15.
Suzuki has been acting on screen for more than 15 years, with a string of roles in Japanese TV series such as historical drama Segodon, Ship of Theseus and Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room. But he has been gaining increased attention for his big screen roles in films such as Last Of The Wolves, for which he won best supporting actor at last year’s Japanese Academy Awards.
More recently, Suzuki starred in Daishi Matsunaga’s LGBTQ+ romance drama Egoist, which played in competition at Tokyo International Film Festival and has sold to a raft of territories including the US. The film will screen as part of NYAFF’s line-up.
The festival is set to open with the North American premiere of Korean genre mashup Killing Romance and director Lee Won-suk will attend the screening with lead actor Lee Sun-kyun, known for his roles in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and A Hard Day. Director Lee was previously at NYAFF with debut feature How To Use Guys With Secret Tips in 2013 and won the festival’s audience award with period drama The Royal Tailor in 2015.
Initial titles revealed by the festival hail from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan among others. (Scroll down for full list of titles)
From Hong Kong, titles include Soi Cheang’s Mad Fate, Amos Why’s Everyphone Everywhere, Lau Kok-rui’s The Sunny Side Of The Street and a new 4K restoration of Patrick Tam’s 1982 Hong Kong New Wave feature Nomad (Director’s Cut).
The lineup of titles from China includes a filmmaker-in-focus tribute to entrepreneur turned director and producer Zhang Wei, including hard-hitting films The Empty Nest, Factory Boss and The Rib (Director’s Cut). Also from China is Liu Jian’s Art College 1994, which played in Competition at the Berlinale earlier this year.
The festival’s South Korean lineup includes Lee Hae-young’s spy drama Phantom, Park Sung-kwang’s family comedy Bear Man, Lim Oh-jeong’s debut feature Hail To Hell, and Kwak Eun-mi’s The Tour Guide, about a North Korean defector.
Taiwanese titles include comedy thriller Bad Education, marking the directorial debut of star Kai Ko, LGBTQ+ action comedy Marry My Dead Body, and Gaga, by Taiwan’s first indigenous female director, Laha Mebow, who will be in attendance at the festival.
NYAFF will again team with Korean Cultural Center New York and Film at Lincoln Center to co-host a free outdoor screening in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. This year’s title is Bong Joon Ho’s 2006 monster feature The Host.
As previously announced, acclaimed Hong Kong star and producer Louis Koo is set to receive the Extraordinary Star Asia Award for Exceptional Contribution to Asian Cinema on July 19. He will introduce the North America premiere of Cheuk Wan-chi’s Vital Signs, in which he plays a veteran ambulance driver.
Samuel Jamier, NYAFF executive director and president of the New York Asian Film Foundation, said: “As filmmakers from Asia continue to earn the lion’s share of top awards (and attention) on the international film festival circuit, this year’s selection shows that those are still trees hiding a forest of talent. It is a year of massive expansion for us at a time when a growing number of American filmmakers of Asian descent are conquering screens.”
NYAFF will reveal further titles – including its Uncaged Competition lineup and closing film – in the coming weeks.
NYAFF 2023: first titles
China
- Art College 1994 | dir. Liu Jian
- The Cord Of Life | dir. Qiao Sixue
- The Empty Nest | dir. Zhang Wei
- Factory Boss | dir. Zhang Wei
- The Rib (Director’s Cut) | dir. Zhang Wei
- A Woman | dir. Wang Chao
Hong Kong
- A Light Never Goes Out | dir. Anastasia Tsang
- Everyphone Everywhere | dir. Amos Why
- In Broad Daylight | dir. Lawrence Kan
- Mad Fate | dir. Soi Cheang
- Nomad (Director’s Cut) | dir. Patrick Tam
- The Sunny Side Of The Street | dir. Lau Kok-rui
- Vital Signs | dir. Cheuk Wan-chi
Japan
- #Manhole | dir. Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
- December | dir. Anshul Chauhan
- Egoist | dir. Daishi Matsunaga
- A Hundred Flowers | dir. Genki Kawamura
- In Her Room | dir. Chihiro Ito
- Mayhem Girls | dir. Shinichi Fujita
- Motherhood | dir. Ryūichi Hiroki
- Mountain Woman | dir. Takeshi Fukunaga
- Okiku And The World | dir. Junji Sakamoto
Philippines
- I Love You, Beksman | dir. Percival Intalan
- 12 Weeks | dir. Anna Isabelle Matutina
- Where Is The Lie? | dir. Quark Henares
Singapore
- Geylang | dir. Boi Kwong
South Korea
- Bear Man | dir. Park Sung-kwang
- Hail To Hell | dir. Lim Oh-jeong
- The Host | dir. Bong Joon Ho
- Killing Romance | dir. Lee Won-suk
- Phantom | dir. Lee Hae-young
- Rebound | dir. Chang Hang-jun
- A Tour Guide | dir. Kwak Eun-mi
Taiwan
- Bad Education | dir. Kai Ko, Taiwan
- Eye Of The Storm | dir. Lin Chun-yang
- Gaga | dir. Laha Mebow
- Marry My Dead Body | dir. Cheng Wei-hao
- Miss Shampoo | dir. Giddens Ko
Thailand
- Kitty The Killer | dir. Lee Thongkham
- You & Me & Me | dirs. Weawwan Hongvivatana, Wanweaw Hongvivatana
Vietnam
- Glorious Ashes | dir. Bui Thac Chuyên
Diasporic Cinema
- A-Town Boyz (US) | dir. Eunice Lau
- The Effects Of Lying (UK)| dir. Isher Sahota
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