News

Osaka Asian Film Festival (Oaff) has announced the rest of its programme with an additional 37 feature-length entries and 2 shorts. This includes 13 titles in the Competition section, 6 titles in the Spotlight section and 9 titles in the Indie Forum section. With the previously-announced 28 works, 67 features and shorts in total –19 World, 5 International, 4 Asian, 32 Japan Premieres – will be screened at the 20th edition of Oaff, which will be held from March 14 to 23, 2025.

Competition

There are 13 titles competing for Oaff 2025’s Grand Prix, many coming in hot with festival and awards buzz and many familiar names to Oaff audiences as filmmakers return with their latest works.

Amongst the filmmakers taking a bow once again are Hwang In-won with her feature film debut Journey to Face Them, a subtle portrait of the insidious effects of sexual assault as experienced by an aspiring writer, and Park Ri-woong with The Land of Morning Calm, a tale of a...

Anselm Chan’s The Last Dance leads the pack going into the 43rd Hong Kong Film Awards (Hkfa) with 18 nominations.

It is followed by Soi Cheang’s Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In with 14 nods and Philip Yung’s Papa with 11 nominations. All three films will face off alongside Adam Wong’s The Way We Talk and Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, in both the best film and best director categories.

The 18 nominations secured by The Last Dance is the highest in Hkfa’s history since Teddy Chen’s Assassins And Bodyguards received the same number in 2010. Chan...

by kijA

Last Song for You, the directorial debut of Jill Leung, opened in Hong Kong cinemas during Christmas 2025 and has just screened in international premiere at the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam, taking place from 30 January – 9 February 2025.

Last Song for You is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam

What if all you need to turn your life around is a little magic, a song and a teenage girl from your past? In his mid-forties, So Sing Wah’s career as singer and music writer hit rock bottom and he, suffering from insomnia and depression, hit a bottle. When he was ready to let go, he met his high school love Ha Man Huen in hospital. Shortly after she dies, a girl in her teens enters Sing Wah’s existence with a stubborn idea to shake him back to life.

“Last Song for You” is a genuine, straightforward, Cantopop-infused melodrama,...

The Hong Kong Film Development Council (Hkfdc) has enhanced its film financing scheme with increased funding and relaxed measures in a bid to further bolster the local film industry and sustain its long-term development.

The Film Production Financing Scheme 2.0, which was launched yesterday (January 15), will see government support increased from $1.15m (Hk$9m) to $1.28m (Hk$10m) per project. Eligible projects will be provided with the maximum financing amount equivalent to 40% of the approved production budget but no more than $1.28m (Hk$10m). Production budget must not exceed $3.2m (Hk$25m).

A bigger portion of the funding will be disbursed...

The Hong Kong Film Development Council (Hkfdc) launched the Film Production Financing Scheme 2.0 (Fpfs 2.0) on Jan. 15 with the goal of bolstering local film production and fostering long-term industry growth.

The scheme replaces the Covid era Film Production Financing Scheme (Relaxation Plan), which ran from July 2020 to Jan. 14, 2025, and successfully supported 23 film projects. Among these was the record-breaking “A Guilty Conscience,” Hong Kong’s highest-grossing Chinese film in 2023. Recently released “Papa” and “Last Song For You,” which were also funded projects under the Relaxation Plan, achieved encouraging box office results.

Fpfs 2.0 introduces several enhancements aimed at making it more attractive to filmmakers and investors alike. The maximum financing amount provided by the government has been increased from HKD9 million ($1.1 million) to HKD10 million ($1.2 million), with qualifying applications receiving up to 40% of the approved production budget. Additionally, cash flow for productions has been significantly improved, with an upfront disbursement of 70% of funds...

The Hong Kong Film Development Council (Hkfdc) has revamped its film financing program with the launch of a new scheme to support the local industry through a bumpy post-pandemic market.

The new scheme, “Film Production Financing Scheme 2.0”, is already active and enhances the “Relaxation Plan” that Hkfdc introduced during the height of the pandemic in mid-July 2020. Hong Kong film production ground to a halt during the pandemic, due to stringent border controls and anti-Covid measures, and while the industry has been busy for the past few years, the market has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

The Relaxation Plan aimed to increase local film production and create more jobs and development opportunities. It has funded 23 Hong Kong film projects, including A Guilty Conscience, which grossed $12.8M (Hk$100M) in 2023 and is now the second highest-grossing film ever at the Hong Kong box office. Other projects funded by the scheme, including Philip Yung’s Papa,...

Hong Kong’s box office in 2024 saw local films record a bigger market share than Hollywood blockbusters for the first time since 2004, but overall takings for the year dropped 6.2% to $172.7m (Hk$1.34bn) – the lowest in 13 years.

In a rare coup, two local hits topped the annual chart. Soi Cheang’s action feature Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In and Anselm Chan’s funeral business drama The Last Dance made history as the second and third local film to ever reach the Hk$100m milestone, taking $13.94m (Hk$108.44bn) and $18.28m (Hk$142.26bn) respectively. The latter also smashed all records...