HAF Adds Works in Progress to Online Film Project Market

The Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) has unveiled 22 feature projects shortlisted for its Work-in-Progress Program. The project will take place exclusively online, running Aug. 26-28, 2020 in parallel with this year’s virtual HAF and FilMart Online.

Production of all the shortlisted projects has been completed or is near completion. They include ten fictions and 12 documentaries.

The fiction segment includes four films from mainland China: Zhou Ziyang’s “Wuhai,” about a married man facing financial difficulties; documentary filmmaker Qiu Jiongjiong’s first fiction feature, “The Neo-New Adventures,” telling the life of the 20th century’s top clown actor of southern Sichuan and his underworld journey to the Ghost City after death; “Summer Blur,” the first feature of Han Shuai, is a coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old girl; and Niu Xiaoyu’s “Virgin Blue,” about a girl trapped in her grandmother’s memories.

The Hong Kong contingent includes “Drifting,” about homeless people, by Jun Li, who debuted last year with “Tracey.” Other standouts include: Indian-born director Prasun Chatterjee’s “Two Friends” (aka “Dostojee”) is the story of friendship between a pair of eight-year-old boys belonging to two warring religious communities, and which also appears in the ‘Goes to Cannes’ section of this week’s Cannes Market; and Adolfo Alix Jr.’s “The Double,” a cycle of violence and retribution, derived from Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

The documentary section includes: Ha Le Diem’s “Children of the Mist,” set in North Vietnam, looks at a Hmong girl as she walks the thin line between childhood and becoming an adult; and “Kith and Kin,” in which director Waraluck Hiransrettawat observes the breakdown of a Chinese-Thai family over the relocation of their ancestral grave.

HAF will later announce the practical details of how to access the HAF project market and the WIP section.