The Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) will screen the world premiere of Adam Wong’s ICAC Investigators 2014 - Better Tomorrow, which has Dante Lam on board as consultant director, on March 26.

The festival is collaborating for the first time with Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Founded in 1974, the organisation helped clean up corruption in Hong Kong, and also provides the backdrop of a crime thriller, Z Storm, currently being produced by Hong Kong’s Pegasus Motion Pictures.

Wong’s Better Tomorrow is a 65-minute film that will be broadcast as part of ICAC’s 2014 TV programming. Scripted by Cheung Fei-fan and starring Liu Kai-chi, Venus Wong and Eddie Law, it follows a university graduate who joins the ICAC and finds herself stuck in a dull clerical position before she is transferred to a major corruption case.

HKIFF will also showcase a selection of ICAC’s TV drama series from the past 40 years, including Investigation (1978), directed by Ann Hui, Calculated Death (2009) directed by Herman Yau and Rigging The Market (2009) and A Blind Eye (2011), both directed by Dante Lam.

“ICAC’s TV drama series has always maintained a high standard of production. This year, the HKIFF is pleased to collaborate with the ICAC on a retrospective of its TV film work over the past 40 years and present some of the best of these classic dramas for free public screening,” said HKIFF artistic director Li Cheuk To. 

The festival has also announced that it will screen several films that recently won awards at the Berlin film festival, including Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (Golden Bear for best film & Silver Bear for best actor); Yoji Yamada’s The Little House
(Silver Bear for best actress); Lou Ye’s Blind Massage (Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution); and Ayumi Sakamoto’s Forma, which won a FIPRESCI Prize.

The 38th HKIFF will be held from March 24 to April 7. The full programme will be announced on Feb 27.

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