News

I’m old enough to remember when Jacques Rivette films were the domain of dark-web networks and substandard DVD rips, a conspiratorial network worthy of his cinema. It’s still a little strange seeing that April will feature a 10-film, one-short Criterion Channel program that combines of his canonized masterpieces with decidedly lesser-seens––plus Va Savoir, which I really hope is the recently unearthed four-hour cut for which there’s no substitute. Penélope Cruz is also subject of a retrospective in April, which––more than making me pine for a Rivette collab that never was––will include both Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky, some Almodóvar, and another in the Channel’s ongoing let’s-add-a-Woody-Allen-movie campaign, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

For themed series, J. Hoberman has curated a series on the dangers of ’60s and ’70s New York that runs from Michael Roemer’s recently restored The Plot Against Harry and...

Say My Name, an upcoming China-Hong Kong romantic drama, won three prizes at the Hkiff Industry Project Market awards, which also crowned the winner of its inaugural animation showcase.

Marking the directorial debut feature of Liu Xing, Say My Name picked up the Wip award of $12,800; the White Light post-production prize, offering services worth $15,000; and an opportunity to attend the Cannes Marche to seek further support.

The story centres on a girl who impersonates an exchange student to start a relationship with a wealthy boy. Yoyo Tse, Jack Tan and Cai Jie have been cast in key roles. A producer...

Say My Name, an upcoming China-Hong Kong romantic drama, won three prizes at the Hkiff Industry Project Market awards, which also crowned the winner of its inaugural animation showcase.

Marking the directorial debut feature of Liu Xing, Say My Name picked up the Wip award of $12,800; the White Light post-production prize, offering services worth $15,000; and an opportunity to attend the Cannes Marche to seek further support.

The story centres on a girl who impersonates an exchange student to start a relationship with a wealthy boy. Yoyo Tse, Jack Tan and Cai Jie have been cast in key roles. A producer...

China producer-distributor Lian Ray Pictures is launching sales on a raft of diverse titles that are set for release this year, including works by directors Han Yan and Feng Xiaogang and with stars Zhao Liying and Zhang Zifeng.

Set for a release on July 5, Han’s sci-fi action adventure Per Aspera Ad Astra revolves around a virtual dream system that allows users to create their own dreams, with rising stars Dylan Wang and Victoria Song in the cast along with veteran Zu Feng. Director Han is known for 2020’s A Little Red Flower.

Starring Zhao Liying (Article 20), female-led social drama...

There’s no escaping the shadow of Ne Zha at Hong Kong Filmart 2025, whether it be the posters of China’s favorite little demon boy on the bus stops and down on the subway walls across Hong Kong, or in the general chatter around the city’s annual film and TV market.

Ne Zha 2 has scooped more than $2 billion from the global box office, making the Chinese-made sequel the biggest animated hit in history. Now, of course, the industry wants more.

That’s music to the ears of the people behind this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival’s (Hkiff) Industry Project Market. Whether by a stroke of genius or sheer luck, the project market has this year expanded its program into animation — just as Enlight Pictures’ Ne Zha 2 conquers the world.

“That success seems just to be auspicious,” says Jacob Wong, head of Hkiff Industry, the...

Japanese anime auteur Masaaki Yuasa, whose rock musical Inu-Oh premiered at Venice, has launched Tokyo-based animation studio Ame Pippin.

The company will aim to be “a place for new opportunities and a fresh creative environment,” according to Yuasa, who is CEO of the new company. No projects have yet been revealed.

The animation studio was founded with backing from Japanese production company and distributor Asmik Ace, which produced Inu-Oh; Sony subsidiary Aniplex; and Comix Wave Films, the animation studio known for producing the films of Makoto Shinkai (Your Name).

Yuasa made his feature directorial debut in 2004 with highly acclaimed manga...

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society has rounded out its 2025 Hkiff Industry Project Market with eight new titles, bringing the total to 48 projects, the highest in recent years. The expansion includes six animation features and two Indonesian projects, bolstering the market’s presence in Asian film development.

Set to run March 17-19 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre alongside FilMart, the market has seen a 60% jump in animation submissions compared to last year. The animation slate features both industry veterans and emerging talents, including Hong Kong director Toe Yuen whose “A Mighty Adventure” was shot live in Taiwan with 90% of computer animation completed in Malaysia.

Among the other works-in-progress are China’s “Min” by Li Jiajia, a professor at the School of Animation and Games of the China Academy of Art, with Liu Jian producing (whose “Have a Nice Day” and “Art College 1994” both competed at Berlin...

Liu Jian and Toe Yuen are among the filmmakers who will showcase their latest works in the new animation section of the upcoming Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf). A special Indonesian showcase in collaboration with Jakarta Film Week (Jfw) has also been unveiled, expanding the scope of the Hkiff Industry Project Market.

A total of six animated feature projects were selected for the inaugural animation showcase, of which three are works-in-progress, including Yuen’s A Mighty Adventure, a Taiwan-Hong Kong-Malaysia co-production about a grasshopper, spider and butterfly who dare to break boundaries and choose their future. Yuen’s My...

Hkiff Industry Project Market has completed this year’s line-up with the addition of a new animation section and a tie-up with Jakarta Film Week in Indonesia.

According to the event organisers, there has been a 60% surge in animation submissions since last year reflecting the industry’s rapid growth in the region. Chinese feature-length animation Nezha 2 shattered records over the recent Lunar New Year holiday in China, grossing $1.6bn (RMB11.93m) at the time of writing.

The animation section at Hkiff Industry Project Market includes three titles in development and three works-in-progress. The three works-in-progress include A Mighty Adventure from Hong Kong filmmaker Toe Yuen, best known for the McDull series of hit animated films; Li Jiajia’s Min, produced by Liu Jian, whose Have A Nice Day and Art College 1994 both screened at the Berlinale; and coming-of-age drama Wildheart from Marceau Nakayama, a Tokyo-born art director and concept artist now based in France.

With an awards season and year-end lists that tend to favor films that have been released in the last few months, there’s many films that can go overlooked. For our yearly feature highlighting the 50 best films you might have missed––arriving before our overall top 50 films––we’ve sought to dig deep to find the gems that deserved more attention upon their initial release and have mostly been left out of year-end conversations. Hopefully, with many widely available on a variety of streaming platforms, they will begin to find an expanded audience.

While many documentaries would qualify for this list, we stuck strictly to narrative efforts; one can instead read our rundown of the top docs here. We also haven’t included 2024 films that only got awards-qualifying runs this year, including Universal Language and Armand. And while there’s some films that deserved bigger audiences, such as Here, Juror...

Set in a southern Chinese art college in 1994, Art College takes us into the lives of students finding their way. Directed by Liu Jian, it’s an animated portrait of a group bonding through big talks on life, art, and China opening up.

Protagonist Xiaojun loves grunge rock and traditional painting, torn between old and new. Close friend Rabbit’s more carefree but cares deeply too. They study and debate with an eclectic bunch as relationships form and ideas clash. Musician Lili draws Xiaojun’s eye, opera singer Hong adds color, and rival Lin stirs things up.

It’s a time of change, with Western influences like Nirvana tees and Coca-Cola arriving. Some embrace modern styles over tradition, and as a curator preaches a “manifesto,” none truly understand. Yet change also brings challenges of identity and purpose. What does the future hold for art and artists in this new China?...

Inside The Yellow Cocoon ShellImage: Kino Lorber

Week after week, in spite of a less-than-promising exhibition landscape, U.S. distributors release noteworthy international titles in a small number of theaters and/or on digital platforms for American audiences to access. Unfortunately, these films not in English and without any household...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Our House of Tolerance 35mm presentation has its final showing on Friday; a print of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds plays this Saturday.

Film at Lincoln Center

A Ryusuke Hamaguchi retrospective has begun.

Paris Theater

A 1984 retrospective brings Spinal Tap, Starman, a 35mm print of Fanny and Alexander, and Now, Voyager.

Anthology Film Archives

“Essential Cinema” brings Pudovkin and Sharits, while “Ecocinema Behind the Iron Curtain” begins.

Film Forum

As Le Samouraï plays in a new 4K restoration, an Alain Delon retrospective and Ken Loach series are underway; Tootsie plays on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Abyss screens on Saturday.

Metrograph

As a complete retrospective of Lee Chang-dong winds down, Liu Jian’s Have a Nice Day screens.

IFC Center

Dawn of the Dead plays through the weekend while Scooby-Doo (on 35mm) and John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs and Polyester show late.

After five long years, “Have a Nice Day” director Liu Jian returns to New York with his newest project, “Art College 1994.” This hotly-anticipated feature checks off all the boxes. It cements Liu Jian's stamp as a rising animation auteur in China; it marks the completed its world tour at Berlinale, Annecy, New York Asian Film Festival, and more; and, what's more, the film features a star-studded voice cast that spans intellectuals, musicians, and other movie directors, including Jia Zhangke and Bi Gan.

Here, we catch a glimpse of a group of students at the Chinese Southern Academy of the Arts. Like many students, they seem to be suspended in a daze of malaise, and of them, Zhang Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) is especially lost. His best friend, Rabbit (Shaoxing), encourages Xiaojun to expand his practice to conceptual art. His crush, the soft-spoken piano student Hao Lili (Zhou Dongyu), is swayed by...

College can be a time of great change in one's life: going it alone for the first time in training for the real world. The inclusion of the year in the title of Liu Jian's third feature “Art College 1994” is necessary in that it sets the scene for a changing time in China in terms of pop culture and, of course, art.

Art College 1994 is screening this Friday, April 26 in Metrograph, for an exclusive Week-Long NY Theatrical Run

Two roommates, Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) and Zhifei (Chizi) are art students who spend their days procrastinating, discussing the philosophy of art and the changing scene from classic to Western-influenced modern. Similarly, vocal student Hong (Papi) and piano student Lili (Zhou Dongyu) discuss their futures and possible marriages.

The two pairs mingle, with potential romantic liaisons hinted at, though their hypothetical, philosophical conversations play out in reality, as they come to...

"Who gets to decide what art is?" Dekanalog has revealed a new trailer for Art College 1994, an animated drama from Chinese filmmaker Jian Liu, also known for Have a Nice Day. This initially premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival more than a year ago, and it played on the festival circuit all of 2023. Beginning on April 26th, Art College 1994, Liu Jian's latest strikingly animated & affecting feature, opens for a week-long NYC exclusive theatrical run at Metrograph In Theater. Lao Wang works in a security department of a college in a big school town. Xiao Wang is a freshman. He has a conflict with his roommate and is taken to security by his counselor. In a room on this foggy winter day, Lao Wang and Xiao Li are tasting the life of their own, and something unexpected is about to happen... The town is waiting quietly for the next day as it always is.

There’s a beautiful scene in Jia Zhangke’s 2004 film The World in which the protagonist, Tao, crosses paths with an industrial worker nicknamed Little Sister on the rooftop of an unfinished building. They chat aimlessly beneath towering spires of exposed rebar until a massive plane soars overhead, drowning out their voices. “Tao, who flies on those planes?” he asks, to which she responds, “Who knows…I don’t know anybody who’s ever been on a plane.”

It’s this precise contrast of stasis and flux, of the sublime and the quotidian, of simple personal dreams swallowed up by massive national ambitions, that characterizes Liu Jian’s newest feature, Art College 1994. Jia also lends his voice to one of its characters: Gu Yongqing, a “roving artist abroad” who speaks of “the mysterious power of art” during a visiting lecture at the titular art college. This is Liu’s third animated feature film,...

If you see one animated Chinese film this year, we suggest it’s Art College 1994. Liu Jian’s feature, featuring the voices of Jia Zhangke and Bi Gan, will make its theatrical debut next week at Metrograph, which will also screen his earlier feature Have a Nice Day. Ahead of this, we’re happy to debut a trailer from Dekanalog.

Here’s the synopsis: “Based on its director’s own experiences on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the mid-1990s, Art College 1994, which returns to the meticulous hand-drawn 2D animation style of predecessor Have a Nice Day, is Liu’s affectionate, bittersweet group portrait of a pack of would-be geniuses preparing to revolutionize the arts when not locked into impassioned conversations about grunge and Van Gogh, its ensemble cast of characters voiced by a line-up of talent that includes directors Bi Gan and Jia Zhangke,...

Despite a series of issues the whole Chinese language movie world is experiencing, it seems, and as we also mentioned last year, the local industries are also moving intensely forward, with the productions of quality from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong increasing significantly. In that fashion, Hong Kong seems to have made a rather successful turn towards social/family dramas, Taiwan continues on the rather high level it has established for some years now, while China's local blockbusters and international, diaspora movies continue to lead the way, both locally and beyond the borders of the country.

Without further ado, here are 20 movies that highlighted all the aforementioned in 2023, in reverse order, although the difference of quality is so small here, that the order could be completely different. Some films may have premiered in 2022, but since they mostly circulated in 2023, we decided to include them.

20. Who'll Stop the Rain by Su...

Memento International has acquired international sales rights to Nora El Hourch’s debut feature “Sisterhood” (“Hlm Pussy”) ahead of its world premiere at Toronto. The timely film will play in the competitive Platform section.

“Sisterhood” follows three inseparable teenagers who face a public outcry after posting a video that exposes someone who attacked them. Faced with threats, they must choose between deleting the video or continuing to fight.

“Sisterhood” boasts a cast of newcomers, including Léah Aubert, Médina Diarra and Salma Takaline, as well as Bérénice Bejo, the Cannes and Cesar award-winning of “The Past” and “The Artist.” Philippe Gompel is producing for Manny Films and La Prod in Morocco is co-producing. Paname Distribution will be handling French distribution.

“Nora El Hourch’s energetic debut feature boldly puts the spotlight on the way sexual harassment is dealt with in the French projects,” said Memento Intl. The company said “Sisterhood” deftly addresses social discrepancies.

College can be a time of great change in one's life: going it alone for the first time in training for the real world. The inclusion of the year in the title of Liu Jian's third feature “Art College 1994” is necessary in that it sets the scene for a changing time in China in terms of pop culture and, of course, art.

Back Home is screening at New York Asian Film Festival

Two roommates, Xiaojun (Dong Zijian) and Zhifei (Chizi) are art students who spend their days procrastinating, discussing the philosophy of art and the changing scene from classic to Western-influenced modern. Similarly, vocal student Hong (Papi) and piano student Lili (Zhou Dongyu) discuss their futures and possible marriages.

The two pairs mingle, with potential romantic liaisons hinted at, though their hypothetical, philosophical conversations play out in reality, as they come to terms with their relationship to art and each other.

The film’s backers include Film4 and Mike Goodridge’s Good Chaos.

Paris-based Memento International has snapped up international rights for Sudabeh Mortezai’s third fiction feature Europa that is set to world premiere in competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August.

The film, shot mostly in English, follows an ambitious executive working at the titular Europa, a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkan region, ostensibly with philanthropic development ambitions. Things don’t go as planned when the executive is challenged by a stubborn and spiritual farmer who refuses to budge from his ancestors’ land.

Europa is...

A total of 24 feature films, including five world premieres, make up this year’s programme.

Edinburgh International Film Festival has unveiled a 24-title programme for 2023, featuring the world premiere of Janis Pugh’s feature debut Chuck Chuck Baby, and international titles spanning Europe, China, India and Japan.

There are five world premieres, plus five retrospective titles, five short films and an outdoor screening weekend of seven features.

Chuck Chuck Baby unfurls in a chicken factory in north Wales, and stars Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Sorcha Cusack, Celyn Jones and Emily Fairn. It’s set in the present day, with a...

Christian Petzold’s Afire and Celine Song’s Past Lives are among the titles set to screen at this year’s scaled-down Edinburgh International Film Festival (Aug 18-23), which is being mounted as part of Edinburgh’s wider cultural Festival.

The full programme announced includes 24 feature films, five retrospective titles, and a five pic short film programme. Five feature films will be presented as World Premieres, including the opening film Silent Roar. The festival closes with British Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s well-received Sundance pic Fremont.

The festival also today announced its new venue partners. Vue Edinburgh Omni and Everyman Edinburgh at the St James Quarter will host indoor festival screenings while the Old College Quad at the University of Edinburgh will be the site for a weekend of outdoor screenings titled Cinema Under the Stars.

Edinburgh had previously been based out of the Edinburgh Filmhouse cinema, which was sold...

Nyaff unveils first wave of features from China, Hong Kong, Japan and beyond.

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 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...

Liu Jian’s “Art College 1994,” the critically acclaimed Chinese animated feature competing at this week’s Annecy festival, has been acquired by New York-based outfit Dekanalog for North American distribution.

A poignant and vibrant portrait of on-campus youth at the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts in the early 1990s, the feature world premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival as one of the rare animated movies that have vied for the Golden Bear. “Art College 1994” will open in North American theaters in 2024, following its release in China.

“Art College 1994” is set against the backdrop of reforms opening China to the Western world and revolves around a group of college students who take their first steps into adulthood, where love and friendships are intertwined with artistic pursuits, ideals and ambitions. Caught between tradition and modernity, these young adults now have to choose who they want to become. The film,...

The quote that opens Chinese director Liu Jian’s shaggy but amiable new animated feature is instructive. “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life” is a passage from James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” and indeed, Liu was himself at art college as a young man in the early ’90s, when and where “Art College 1994” is, unsurprisingly, set. The quasi-memoir feel to the movie does have its charm — it’s always a kick to see animation techniques applied not to extravagant flights of fancy but to slices of real, ordinary life — but it’s also its chief flaw. In re-creating life out of life, Liu is quite successful; whether he makes it into drama is another question. Like its characters, “Art College 1994” gives the impression of having just too much time on its hands.

Liu...