Ladies and gentlemen, and the winner is…..!

The small yet always quaint Udine hosted the 13^th edition of its wonderful “Far East Film Festival”. Throughout the years this fascinating event has become Europe’s most important Asian film review (on more than one occasion even the prestigious “The Economist” has reported on it).

The week long festival saw a record 87 movies being shown from 12 different countries, including Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and also first-timer Mongolia.

The festival itself is quite the hit in Udine attracting not only locals but also foreigners involved in the international movie sector. The all-day movie showings were divided into two venues, the main “Giovanni da Udine” theatre and the “Visionario” cinema (a former youth centre during the Fascist period. It had actually been visited by Benito Mussolini!). The opening night saw as master of ceremonies the very dynamic festival director Sabrina Baracetti and Udine’s mayor, Furio Honsell.

Some Asian directors, thanks to Udine’s festival, have also managed to get some rather great international exposure, such as Hong Kong’s Johnny To. Recent festival winners in Udine also went on to eventually win Oscar awards in Hollywood, such as Japan’s splendid “Departures”. That movie ended up winning the Oscar for best foreign movie just a few years ago.

Many directors have at current and also past editions been very impressed and even touched at seeing even MORE people show up at their world premiers in Udine than in their very own countries (showings have been practically all sold-out)! This was also the comment by China’s movie director Daming Chen who presented this year his cute re-make of “What Women Want”, which had originally starred Mel Gibson. The Chinese version instead included beauty sensation Gong Li, who unfortunately could not make it to Udine for this year’s festival (a pity as on the big screen she’s simply exquisite!).

And this year’s winner? The very extremely moving “Aftershock” by China’s Xiaogang Feng. The movie deals with a devastating earthquake which hit China on May 6^th, 1976, causing the death of some 240,000 people. The movie in Udine was actually shown on May 6^th, no coincidence actually as on that very same date back in 1976 the Udine area also got hit by a severe earthquake. Indeed a moving homage to the victims of both countries (and also to those in the recent disaster in Japan as festival organisers also paid homage to that country’s victims).