bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

knowledgeQuestion

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Stephen McCarty

Roger Garcia speaks “terrible” Italian.
And that is after 20-plus years of attending the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) in Udine, Italy, from where, by video call, the affable Hong Kong filmmaker, talking new Asian talent, premieres, the growing influence of streaming platforms and more, cheerfully delivers his confession.
The FEFF has long been one of the most important channels for the promotion of Asian cinema throughout Europe.
This spring’s jamboree, its 26th, feted Zhang Yimou with an honorary gong and screened the world premieres of restored editions of his movies Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and To Live (1994).


And unusually for Garcia, this festival would afford him the rare opportunity to be consumer, not facilitator.
“Usually I put together a programme showing Asian and Western films, with interaction between the two, like inspirations or remakes,” he says. “But we couldn’t work out this year’s programme because of some of the rights. So I’m able to watch films for once.
“I also help out here as a kind of mentor. Ten or so film projects are brought in every year by producers. I meet them; we discuss their plans. I’m there to help them make their films more marketable – if they accept my ideas!”

“Godfather” Garcia also plays a similar but more far-reaching role closer to home.
“I’ve just finished [an inaugural] film camp at Sands China, in Macau – the International Film Camp, run by the Asian Film Awards Academy [AFAA], of which I used to be the head,” he says.
“In Macau, film festivals are held with varying degrees of success. But they do year-round programmes and I thought it better to bring people in for a purpose, on something like a talent campus,” he says.
“I had the idea of a film camp for young filmmakers from all over Asia; and to make it a more concrete experience they would come with short film projects. With mentors they would develop them, then pitch to a selection panel.
“We had 550 applications – I anticipated about 100 – and 16 filmmakers came to the camp. Half of them got HK$300,000 [US$38,500] each to make their short film.”

Which sounds brutal for the unlucky one in two.
“Quite tough, yes,” agrees Garcia.
“But rejection is about 90 per cent of the job in filmmaking. The International Film Camp will now oversee the production of the eight short films and help get them shown, at festivals or through the AFAA programme.”
Garcia has twice served as executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society and was “the artistic director of the Hainan International Film Festival for a couple of years”, he adds.
He describes the Hainan events as “well resourced”, which could help explain his recruitment of actors Johnny Depp and Isabelle Huppert, among other notable guests.
Festival programming and consulting aside, Garcia is also a producer; one of his Tinseltown projects was the early Mark Wahlberg outing The Big Hit (1998).


“I produced avant-garde films in Hong Kong in the 1980s, then Hollywood movies in the late 90s, where I was also a kind of ghost writer: you get small credits, which don’t pay a thing!” he says.
More recent work has returned him to the region. “I wrote the original treatment for and produced multimedia show The Once and Future, for which we shot the movie [component] in Argentina with Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua.
“We had Indian singer Anandi Bhattacharya on stage with the ZeMu! Ensemble – drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic – for its world premiere, at the Singapore International Festival of Arts in 2022. Then it was presented at last year’s New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong,” he says.
Garcia is now working as the producer of a documentary on the artist Wifredo Lam.
“He’s the subject of a current exhibition at the Asia Society in Hong Kong,” says Garcia. “He was born in Cuba in 1902 to a southern Chinese father and a mother from Cuba, of Congolese ancestry, [making him] Chinese-African-Cuban. He knew Picasso and fought in the Spanish civil war against the fascists.
“He was a painter, ceramicist and the only artist of colour who participated in two of the most important movements of the 20th century: cubism and surrealism,” says Garcia. “So he’s really relevant today because he was multicultural – and should have been a Wilfredo, but his father made a mistake on his birth certificate!”

As far as streaming goes, Garcia is keenly aware of the opportunities a big-budget series, for example, could eventually offer his young filmmakers, even if they start out on short movies.
He helped Filipino director Raymond Red sell his 2000 Cannes Palme d’Or-winning short Anino to “AtomFilms, one of the first kind of streaming companies”. And there, Garcia saw the future.
Twenty years ago, “short films were a really good medium for streaming”, he says. “Before high-speed broadband, you couldn’t stream a feature film easily, but you could a short.
“I’ve been involved with short films since the early 80s and I’ve seen the market change – and streaming is all-pervasive now.”


How singer-actor Jacky Cheung became one of the greats of Hong Kong entertainment

Why this former investment banker turned to comedy after burning out in the corporate world

Meet the world’s leading Ming furniture collector – whose piece a British royal once couldn’t afford

Can you really distil the taste of whisky in an art installation? Hong Kong Renaissance woman Elaine Ng thinks so

Profile

So you want to make a movie? Hong Kong director Roger Garcia is helping young filmmakers from all over Asia find their feet

Roger Garcia is helping the next generation of Asian filmmakers find their feet. Photo: courtesy of Roger Garcia

Hong Kong director Roger Garcia reflects on film festivals in Europe and Greater China, and how he is helping the next generation of gifted Asian filmmakers find their feet. Photo: courtesy of Roger Garcia

Anandi Bhattacharya in The Once and Future world premiere at the Singapore International Festival of the Arts in 2022. Photo: Roger Garcia

From The Once and Future world premiere at the Singapore International Festival of the Arts. Photo: Roger Garcia

Can’t wait for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga? 5 post-apocalyptic movies from Asia to watch, from Akira to Snowpiercer

Anya Taylor-Joy in a still from Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Ahead of the film’s release, why not indulge in some of the best post-apocalyptic visions from Asian filmmakers, from Akira to Snowpiercer and Warriors of Future? Photo: Jasin Boland

A still from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

A still from the Japanese animated film Akira (1988).

(From left) Octavia Spencer, Tilda Swinton, Ewen Bremner, Chris Evans, Luke Pasqualino, Ko Ah-sung and Song Kang-ho in a still from Snowpiercer (2013).

Yo Oizumi (left) and Katsumi Arimura in a still from I Am a Hero (2015).

Lau Ching-wan in a still from Warriors of Future.

Netflix movie review: My Oni Girl – Japanese fantasy anime by A Whisker Away co-director is frustratingly familiar

Tsumugi (voiced by Miyu Tomita) in a still from My Oni Girl. Photo: Netflix

Tsumugi (left, voiced by Miyu Tomita) and Hiiragi (Kensho Ono) in a still from My Oni Girl, directed by Tomotaka Shibayama. While good to look at, the film feels pedestrian and predictable. Photo: Netflix

Hiiragi (voiced by Kensho Ono) in a still from My Oni Girl. Photo: Netflix

Tsumugi (left, voiced by Miyu Tomita) and Hiiragi (Kensho Ono) in a still from My Oni Girl. Photo: Netflix

They said Michael Chow was too Chinese to be an artist, so he opened a restaurant. Look at him now

Michael Chow in 2022 his Los Angeles studio. Photo: Michael Chow

Michael Chow in 2022 his Los Angeles studio with his One Breath paintings behind him. Famous for his celebrity-packed chain of Chinese restaurants, Chow talks about facing prejudice and why he wants to be known as the world’s greatest living artist. Photo: Michael Chow

Restaurateur Michael Chow in London circa 1969.

Chow as a baby in Shanghai in 1939. Photo: Michael Chow

Mr Chow’s in New York was an art and fashion hotspot.

Chow and his former wife Tina Chow.

Chow and his then-wife Tina in Hong Kong in 1985.

A portrait of the Zhou family in Shanghai in 1939, with Michael Chow sitting on his father’s lap. Photo: Michael Chow

Chow’s art piece Self-Portrait (1959).

An untitled art piece by Chow, 1962.

Chow’s One Breath No. 216 (2018).

Art gallery owner Pearl Lam and Chow in front of Sweet Tongue (2013) at Pearl Lam Galleries in 2014.

Chow’s One Breath No. 157 (2018).

Chow’s Hurricane (2022).

Cannes 2024: Black Dog movie review – Chinese director Guan Hu debuts in Un Certain Regard with relationship drama

Eddie Peng as Lang in a still from Black Dog, directed by Guan Yu. Dong Liya and Jia Zhangke co-star.

A still from Black Dog.

A still from Black Dog, set in the steppes of northwest China.

Yuyu Kitamura of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives on growing up open-minded in Hong Kong, and having mental health support

Yuyu Kitamura as Niko Sasaki in a still from Dead Boy Detectives. Photo: Netflix

Yuyu Kitamura as Niko Sasaki in a still from Dead Boy Detectives. The Netflix star talks about growing up in Hong Kong and being allowed to chase her dreams. Photo: Netflix

Kitamura as Niko Sasaki, a Japanese student who is plagued by paranormal parasites, in a still from Dead Boy Detectives. Photo: Netflix

(From left) George Rexstrew as Edwin Payne, Kassius Nelson as Crystal Palace, Kitamura as Niko Sasaki and Jayden Revri as Charles Rowland in a still from Dead Boy Detectives. Photo: Netflix

Kitamura in a dance theatre performance at NYU. Photo: Yuyu Kitamura

Kitamura in Invited In, which made waves at the New York Asian Film Festival. Photo: Katie Lau

 Kitamura in a 2014 play with Hong Kong’s Faust International Youth Theatre. Photo: Yuyu Kitamura 

Kitamura as Niko Sasaki and Kassius Nelson as Crystal Palace in a still from Dead Boy Detectives. Photo: Netflix

Kitamura says creating stories about Hong Kong is on her radar. Photo: Yuyu Kitamura 

Magazines

PostMag

Film & TV

Culture

Lifestyle

Entertainment

As a mentor, Hong Kong director Roger Garcia helps producers make their films more marketable. He’s launched a film camp for young filmmakers from all over Asia
He talks to the Post about the evolution of streaming, why ‘rejection is about 90 per cent of the job in filmmaking’ and the work he did in the 1980s and 1990s


Hong Kong director Roger Garcia talks about promoting Asian cinema, why ‘rejection is about 90 per cent of the job in filmmaking’, and how he is helping the next generation of filmmakers find their feet.


Hollywood

Asian cinema: Chinese films

Asian cinema: Hong Kong film

TV shows and streaming video