Paris Cinema's 10th edition to open with Carax's Holy Motors

West will meet East at the 10th anniversary edition of the Paris Cinema festival, running June 29 to July 10.  

The festival, which announced its line-up on Thursday (June 7), will put the focus on Hong Kong Cinema in its 10th edition with a panorama of the territory’s films from 1948 to the present day.

Hong Kong figures due in Paris include filmmaker and producer Johnnie To; director and martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo Ping, whose work ranges from his own seminal 1970s Jackie Chan-starrer Drunken Master to action scenes in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and up-and-coming director Heiward Mak, who will present her recent film High Noon.

Collaborating closely with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Paris Cinema has drawn together a selection of 80 Hong Kong productions.

They include 1950s and 60s classics such as Zhu Shilin’s classic costume drama Sorrows of the Forbidden City and Wang Tian-lin’s 1960s retelling of Bizet’s Carmen The Wild, Wild Rose as well as pictures emblematic of the Hong Kong New Wave of the late 1970s and 1980s such as Patrick Tam’s Love Massacre and Allen Fong’s Father and Son.

Director and producer To, who has agreed to act as guardian of the panorama, will present a selection of his own work, including his recent Life Without Principle, as well as showcase shorts backed by his Fresh Wave initiative aimed at fostering new Hong Kong talent. He will also give a master class.

The public-focused Paris Cinema, which unfolds in 14 theatres across Paris, attracted 70,000 spectators to its ninth edition last year.

Elsewhere in this year’s programme, French director Leo Carax’s comeback picture Holy Motors, which divided critics following its premiere in Cannes in May, will open the festival. A retrospective of all of Carax’s work will also screen.

Other guests of honour of the festival include French director Olivier Assayas. A retrospective of his work will screen during the festival and he will also give a master class. Tribute will also be paid to the late Raoul Ruiz.

Cécilia Rouard’s romantic tragicomedy Je me suis fait tout petit, starring Vanessa Paradis opposite Denis Ménochet, will close the festival.

Eight films will screen in competition including Ann Hui’s A Simple Life, which was Hong Kong’s Best Foreign Language Oscar submission in 2011, Brazilian Julia Murat’s Historias, Korean feature-length animation The King of Pigs and Kim Nguyen’s War Witch capturing the plight of children caught up in an African war. 

Paris Cinema will also preview more than 40 features due for release in France in the coming months including a number of other Cannes titles such as Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner Amour and Joachim Lafosse’s UCR screener Our Children (A Perdre La Raison).

Industry events include the co-production forum Paris Project, aimed at putting international filmmakers in touch with French producers and distributors. A complete list of projects is due to be announced on July 8.

Other professional events include an Ateliers du Cinema Européen (ACE) seminar entitled “The Three Ws of European Film Financing: where, what and why?” and a discussion on how to co-produce with France, featuring Agat Ex-Nihilo producer Patrick Sobelman, Janja Kralj of Kinoelectron and Charlotte Uzu of Les Films d’ici, organised by the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) training body. 

A special workshop aimed at fostering cooperation between French and Taiwanese producers is also on the agenda.