EXCLUSIVE: The new Los Angeles festival will open with South Korea’s The Shameless and close with Taiwan’s foreign language Oscar submission The Assassin.

EXCLUSIVE: The first Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles is to screen South Korea’s The Shameless as it opening night film and Taiwan’s The Assassin as its closing night presentation.

The festival, set to run October 26 - November 2 in Culver City and Westwood, will feature a selection of films that have been submitted for the foreign language Oscar and Golden Globe awards from 50 Asian countries. It will host panels on subjects including film finance, marketing and cross cultural collaborationsand culminate with an awards ceremony.

The event was created by Sadyk Sher-Niyaz, producer of Heavenly Nomadic, the drama from Kyrgyzstan that won the FEDEORA prize at this year’s Karlovy Vary festival and is Kyrgyzstan’s submission for this year’s foreign language Oscar.

Written and directed by Oh Seung-uk,The Shameless (pictured) had its world premiere at Cannes in Un Certain Regard and won the Golden Goblet Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival. It stars Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Nam-gil and Park Sung-woong in a story about a homicide detective and the girlfriend of a mob enforcer.

The Assassin, directed by Hsiao-Hsien Hou, is Taiwan’s submission for the foreign language Oscar and won Hou the best director award at this year’s Cannes. Shu Qi and Chang Cheen star in the ninth century tale of a general’s daughter transformed into an assassin and sent back to her birthplace to kill the man to whom she was once promised.

Said Asian World Film Festival executive director Georges Chamchoum in a statement: “We wanted to open our first edition with a South Korean movie. South Korea for the past twodecades has been at the forefront of the Asian movie-making - but furthermore they have been literally reinventing the cinema in general. Thus the choice of Seung-uk Oh’s The Shameless.”

“It is a great honour to close our festival with Taiwanese The Assassin,” Chamchoum added. “We praise it highly not only for the outstanding high quality of the content and production value but also because the director Hou Hsiao-Hsien has a great reputation among film lovers all over the world.”

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