Taiwan’s Hope Marketing Entertainment has secured a Korean deal for Who’ll Stop The Rain ahead of its screening at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan), and a Japanese deal for documentary In Search of A Mixed Identity.
Taiwanese director Su I-Hsuan’s feature debut Who’ll Stop The Rain has sold to new Korean distributor Steelworks Entertainment. The LGBTQ+ drama revolves around two female students who get swept up in the island’s longest student strike during the early years of the post-martial law era.
Who’ll Stop The Rain will be the first distribution title for Steelworks Entertainment, which was established earlier this year. The company’s managing director, Fred Stiehl, previously worked on international animation The Nut Job 2 and fully Korean-produced animation features Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs and Yumi’s Cells: The Movie.
Bifan, which opens in South Korea today (July 4), will host of the Korean premiere of the film in the Merry-Go-Round section, with both screenings sold out quickly. The film has previously played at Taipei, Tokyo and Rotterdam film festivals and received two nominations for Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards.
“It’s a beautiful story of love and self-discovery set in the 1990s as civil democracy and liberalism begin to flourish, a time which closely reflects Korea’s own recent history,” said Stiehl.
“Despite, or perhaps because of, this historical setting, the film’s themes of freedom and self-expression are made all the more universal and contemporary, as our protagonist grows to understand herself creatively, politically, and ultimately, romantically.”
Hope Marketing Entertainment has also sold documentary In Search of A Mixed Identity to Japanese distributor Uzumasa.
Directed by Huang Ming-Cheng and Lien Chen-Hui, the feature centres on Thng Tek-chiong, an important historical figure in Taiwan who was born during the Japanese colonial era. The history of the Thng family reflects the pursuit of Taiwanese identity during those times and serves as a cautionary tale for people living in Taiwan now.
Uzumasa previously released Huang’s Wansei Back Home, a documentary about Taiwan-born Japanese during the colonial period, which took more than $201,000 (¥32.5m) from 24,000 admissions on release in 60 theatres.
No comments yet