Pang Ho-cheung’s Love In The Buff will open this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (March 21-April 5), while Berlin competition entry White Deer Plain will close the event.

Pang’s film is a follow-up to his well-received romantic comedy, Love In A Puff, which was one of two opening films at the HKIFF in 2010. The sequel again stars Miriam Yeung and Shawn Yue as former lovers who run into each other whilst working in Beijing. Yeung will also reprise her role as the festival’s ambassador.

Historical epic White Deer Plain, directed by China’s Wang Quan’an, picked up a Silver Bear for cinematography at the recent Berlin film festival.

Charlotte Rampling will attend the festival’s opening in her capacity as president of the Paris Cinema International Film Festival, which this year will present a focus on Hong Kong cinema in collaboration with HKIFF. She will also attend a screening of The Look, Angela Maccarone’s biographical study of Rampling.

Rampling also stars in The Mill & The Cross, which will be screened as one of eight films in the “Poland in Close-up” section.

Meanwhile, the Awards Gala will feature a screening of Taiwanese portmanteau 10+10, which recently screened in the Panorama section of Berlin.

The festival will also screen the portmanteau film Beautiful 2012, featuring short films by Gu Changwei, Tsai Ming-liang, Kim Tae-yong and Ann Hui. The films are produced by HKIFF and commissioned by Chinese video site Youku.

As previously announced, Peter Ho-sun Chan is this year’s “Filmmaker in Focus”. The festival will screen 12 of his films along with a series of publications, exhibitions and seminars.

Keanu Reeves, who is directing Man Of Tai Chi in Beijing, will be in town just prior to the festival to deliver the JCCA Master Class on March 18.