Hong Kong movie to open April festival

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

•	Hawai'i International Spring Film Festival 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. April 20-26 (weekend matinees will vary) Waikiki Twins #2 $7 ($6 for HIFF 'Ohana), on sale starting April 16 (April 13 for 'Ohana) at the theater box office, 333 Seaside Ave. 528-3456, ext. 18

The event will run through April 26, a seven-day schedule of films, compared to three in the past.

HIFF, always on the lookout for rising-star films and directors, could be onto something with the Wong Kar-Wai feature, which will kick off the festivities with a screening at 6:30 p.m. April 20.

The Hong Kong film, applauded as the "Chungking Express" director's best to date, is a love story, set in Hong Kong in 1962, dealing with love lost and found by two neighbors who spend a lot of time together, only to find their spouses are having an affair. The movie stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung; Leung was a Best Actor winner in the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

Chuck Boller, executive director of HIFF, called "Mood" "an exquisite jewel of a film. I was at the Rotterdam Film Festival, met the stars on the street, and invited them to attend our film festival on the spot. We're now waiting to hear if they will attend, but they are both major stars."

Similarly, he said he acquired the Japanese film "Battle Royal," the closing night film to be shown at 8:30 p.m. April 26, by making a personal bid to the

director, Fukasaku Kinji. "It's now sweeping Japan — a controversial film (starring Beat Takeshi) not only because it's ultra-violent but because of the intergenerational conflict between elders and kids."

Boller said it made sense to expand the festival to a week, what with the cache of movies available.

"Dwight Damon, on our board and the head of the programming committee, said we shouldn't wait to hold some of these films till the November festival," said Boller.

Last year, HIFF premiered Ang Lee's widely applauded "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," a martial arts romance that has emerged as a surprise box office hit and a contender for this year's Academy Awards best picture.

Ang just was named best director by the Director's Guild of America. "Crouching Tiger" has stimulated increased interest in Asian films nationwide.

And with tourist attendance up last year, Boller expects a large visitor walk-up business for the spring festival.

Two films will be screened at 6:30 and 830 p.m. daily during the festival, with matinee offerings (schedules will vary) on Saturday and Sunday.

Other films confirmed:

• "The Circle," an Iran/Italy feature by Jafar Panahl. The film chronicles the lives of three Iranian women who are expelled from society for vague crimes and whose separate paths eventually cross. It was the Golden Lion Award winner at the 2000 Venice Film Festival.

• "Secret Society," a British/ Germany release by Imogen Kimmel. The movie follows a group of British women whose honor is tainted because of their fascination with sumo wrestling; to regain their lost honor, the women stage a tournament against a group of male Japanese sumotori.

• "Last Resort," a British film by Pawel Pawilikovsky. This was a Best British Newcomer winner for Pawilikovsky at the British Academy Awards. It is about a Russian woman and her son, detained at the London airport when her elusive fiance fails to collect them. To avoid deportation, she seeks political asylum; a business owner helps them overcome heartbreak and hardship.

• "The Heart of the World," a Canadian film by Guy Maddin. This tribute to Eisenstein and Vertov was the talk of the Toronto Film Festival, for its storytelling flavor, cogently packed in five crisp minutes of Russian cinematic imagery. Judged the Best Experimental Film by the 2000 National Society of Film Critics and Best Narrative Short at the 2001 Golden Gate Awards, "Heart" will precede showings of "Last Resort" and "The Convent."

• "The Price of Milk," a New Zealand film directed by Harry Sinclair. This romantic comedy is about a couple whose blissful life on a dairy farm is jarred when their relationship loses its flare. The wife's efforts to have a friend create minor conflicts in the relationship leads to more woes.

• "Innocence," an Australian film by Paul Cox. This exploration of sexual reawakening in the life of a retired organist, widower and music teacher who meets again with his first love of 50 years ago, now unhappily married. An affair results in an evocative tale of the resilience of love.

• "Better Than Sex," an Australian entry by Jonan Teplitzky. Two strangers' one-night stand turns into an emotional roller-coaster ride of trust, commitment and vulnerability.

• "The Convent," an American film by Mike Mendez. A group of college students enter an abandoned building before a homecoming game and are haunted by what apparently took place there 40 years earlier, when a girl used a sawed-off shotgun to murder praying nuns and doused the mother superior with gasoline to set her afire.

• "The Testimony of Taliesin Jones," a U.S./British film by Martin Duffy. Set in a remote Welsh countryside, this tale is about a 12-year-old boy, an outsider in school, who turns to God but finds more questions than answers. A piano teacher played by Jonathan Pryce becomes his source of solace. It's an examination of faith and loyalty.

• "Fiasco," an Iceland film by Ragnar Bragason. Set in present-day Reykjavik, this black comedy draws a narrative of interconnecting and chronologically deviant stories in which various members of a household deal with secret and often bizarre occurrences in their lives.

• "The American Nightmare," a Canadian film by Adam Simon, paired with "Rot Woman," a Japanese short by Nobuhiro Yamashita. "Nightmare" is a documentary on the past 25 years of horror flicks, with clips from genre masters George Romeo, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, David Cronenburg and John Carpenter. "Woman" pays homage to Italian zombie films.