The seventh edition of the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) will present 27 Asian projects over three days from March 23-25.

High-profile directors in the line-up include China's Lu Chuan and Ning Hao, who participated in HAF 2005 with their now completed films Nanking! Nanking! and Crazy Racer respectively; Korea's Na Hong-jin, who shot to international acclaim last year with The Chaser, and Taiwan's Wei Te-sheng, who directed the record-breaking Cape No 7.

Hong Kong is also strongly represented with genre projects from Dante Lam and Teddy Chen, actress Charlie Young's directorial debut and Barbara Wong Chun-chun's daring exploration of 'compensated dating'.

The HAF reading committee has also honed in on the low-budget film-making renaissance in the Philippines, which like Malaysia and Indonesia, has been invigorated by low-cost digital technology. Three projects have been selected including one from Brillante Mendoza, whose Service played in Cannes Competition last year.

'The Philippines has an industry that people say has been dead for many years, yet films keep emerging,' says HAF director Jacob Wong. 'It seems young Filipinos are unimpressed by the mainstream industry and want to do something new.'

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