International Film Promoter Announced
Today's screening event information has been released, including multiple post-screening Q&A sessions and live scoring events. Tickets are available online via the Maoyan platform.
At the same time, the International Film Promoter for the 6th Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) has been officially announced. Argentine actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart will take on the role, and the film Sleep with One Eye Open, in which he stars, will also be screened during the festival!
Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
"Ends of the Earth"
Blue Life
(Pre-screening Event)
December 9 17:15
bluish
Asian Premiere | Austria | 2024 | 83min
Directors: Lilith Kraxner / Milena Czerny
Starring: Leonie Brandner / Natasha Goncharova
Synopsis: Errol and Sasha are two lost young adults in their twenties drifting through the winter. With their gentle gazes, the people, stories, places, and realities around them begin to intertwine. The film presents a fragile state of existence, an atmosphere interwoven with ambiguity and longing, depicting the complex inner emotions and disorientation of its characters.
Sleep with One Eye Open
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 10 13:00
Sleep With Your Eyes Open
Mainland China Premiere | Brazil / Argentina / Chinese Taiwan / Germany | 2024 | 97min
Director: Nele Wohlatz
Starring: Chen Xiaoxin / Wang Xinghong / Liao Kairou / Nahuel Pérez Biscayart / Lu Yangzong
Synopsis: In a coastal city in Brazil, a heartbroken Taiwanese girl named Kai arrives for a vacation. A broken air conditioner leads her into Fu'an's umbrella shop. He could have been her friend, but the rainy season is long delayed, and Fu'an's shop vanishes along with it. Later, while searching for Fu'an, she discovers the stories of Xiaoxin and a group of Chinese workers, finding a remarkable resonance among them.
"In Focus"
December 6 15:00
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
Bernard's Wonderful Night
Bernard Checks in
Asian Premiere | USA | 2020 | 18min
Director: Michael Baasten
Starring: Timothy Horner / Connor Marks / Ashley Pratt
Synopsis: Checking into a motel on a business trip, Bernard accidentally enters the wrong room. He encounters a couple and accepts an enticing proposition. However, the initially thrilling invitation soon becomes tense and complicated due to the underlying conflicts between the couple, forcing Bernard to play the reluctant mediator in their emotional drama.
Harper's Comet
Happer’s Comet
USA | 2022 | 62min
Director: Tyler Taormina
Starring: Grace Berlino / Michael Guliamo / Jax Tery / Brendan Burt / Brandon Cassanova
Synopsis: In the dead of night, everything is far from quiet, and strange encounters are taking place while we sleep. The camera caresses this suburb, sweeping over the late-night activities of its residents. Everything seems beyond the ordinary, but this is not a horror film; it is more like a shared dream.
Ham on Rye
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 7 10:30
Ham on Rye
China Premiere | USA | 2019 | 85min
Director: Tyler Taormina
Cast: Haley Bodell / Cole Devine / Audrey Booth / Gabriella Herrera / Adam Torres
Synopsis: Ham on Rye is a coming-of-age comedy that gradually shifts from a John Hughes-esque warmth to a Risky Business-style dystopia. Through a massive cast of a hundred (including non-professional actors, musicians, and 90s child stars), it presents the raw excitement of youth and the bizarre dread of entering adulthood, depicting suburban rituals and the decay of human nature.
Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 7 13:00
Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
USA | English | 2024 | 106min
Director: Tyler Taormina
Starring: Michael Cera / Sawyer Spielberg / Maria Dizzia / Matilda Fleming / Elsie Fisher
Synopsis: On Christmas Eve, a family gathers at the grandparents' home, potentially for the last holiday they will spend together there. As night falls, generational conflicts intensify, and one teenager sneaks out with friends, deciding to claim this cold suburb as their own.
Siren Topology
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 7 17:30
Topology of Sirens
China Premiere | USA | 2021 | 106min
Director: Jonathan Davies
Starring: Courtney Stephens / Lara Dallavachi / Whitney Johnson / Samantha Robinson / Langley Fox Hemingway
Synopsis: After discovering a set of mysterious micro-cassettes in her new home, Cass is drawn into a meditative enigma involving ambient sounds and experimental music.
High Arc Slow Ball
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 8 10:30
Eephus
USA / France | 2024 | 98min
Director: Carson Lund
Cast: Keith William Richards | Clive Black | Ray Herib
Synopsis: In an empty stadium in New England, an amateur baseball game that lasts from early morning to dusk becomes the team's final battle before the venue is demolished. Through exquisite cinematography, the film portrays the end of a specific rural, masculine world in America. This is Carson Lund's feature debut, representing a breakthrough in American independent cinema.
"Island-Wide Carnival - Female Chapter"
Yukiko a.k.a.
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 10 10:30
Yukiko a.k.a.
China Premiere | Japan | 2024 | 98min
Director: Naoya Kusaba
Cast: Rio Yamashita / Daiki Watanabe / Fusako Uranabe
Synopsis: Yukiko Yoshimura is a fourth-grade homeroom teacher at an elementary school in Tokyo. Approaching 30, she is constantly troubled by vague anxiety. She struggles to connect with a student who hates school and lacks confidence in marriage. The only thing that truly excites her is hip-hop and rap. What does it mean to truly live as oneself? This is the story of her journey to discover her authentic life.
Asian Horizon
The Blind Poet's Excavation
(Live Accompaniment)
December 6 20:00
The Veil of Happiness
Mainland China Premiere｜France｜1923｜52min
Director: Édouard-Émile Violet
Cast: Xu Hu / Suzie Winata / Liao Shiqin
Synopsis: A blind Chinese poet, amidst the pain of his blindness, firmly believes that all the people and things around him are beautiful and kind. However, when his sight is restored, the prophet's words come true: he sees the hypocrisy of his friends, the infidelity of his wife, and his young son mocking his blindness.
The Oriental Cruise
(Live Accompaniment)
December 7 19:30
The Yellow Cruise
Mainland China Premiere｜France｜1934｜98min
Director: André Sauvage
Cast: Georges-Marie Haardt / Louis Audouin-Dubreuil / André Citroën / Victor Point
Synopsis: The "Citroën Central Asian Expedition," funded by André Citroën and known as the "Yellow Expedition," aimed to connect Beirut and Beijing using half-track vehicles. A team of about forty people, including scientists and doctors, traveled across the Middle East and the Far East, covering a total distance of 30,000 kilometers and overcoming numerous challenges along the way, such as severe weather, mechanical failures, and political conflicts.
Asian Horizon
All the Sad Young Men
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 6 20:00
All, or Nothing at All
Mainland China Premiere｜China｜2023｜123min
Director: Zhang Jiajun
Cast: Chen Xiaoyi / An Yu / Liang Cuishan / Wei Ruguang
Synopsis: On an urban isolated island in Shanghai, architecture student Youyou is infatuated with street dance teacher Lantian. She coldly and obsessively stalks him. Perhaps yesterday or tomorrow, filmmaker Lantian becomes fascinated with cosmetics salesperson Youyou. He observes the unguarded Youyou from afar, his phone camera continuously zooming in to record her. In this glittering, enticing twin-skyscraper mega-mall composed of countless elevators and escalators, strangers begin to quietly observe one another.
Director Biography: Zhang Jiajun was born in Shanghai and graduated from the London Film School. The short film Chizi, co-directed with Bian Xiyin, won the Special Jury Award in the International Medium and Short Film Competition Section at the 52nd Visions du Réel in Switzerland, among other accolades. His works navigate between documentary and fiction, often focusing on the relationship between urban space and people. He is one of the new directors worldwide that New York film critics are paying the most attention to in 2024.
Regrettably at Dawn
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 8 17:20
Regretfully at Dawn
Mainland China Premiere｜Thailand / Singapore｜2024｜116min
Director: Sivaro Kongsaku
Cast: Surachai Gunthimathon / Jantida Sutigijpanich / O Liang
Synopsis: In a small town not far from Bangkok, A-Yong is an seemingly ordinary old man, but the scars on his amputated fingers reveal his past as a veteran. Memories of the war continue to haunt him, but he is accompanied by a black dog that seems to see through the secrets of the afterlife, and his clever niece, abandoned by her parents—he hopes to build a treehouse for her with his own hands.
Family Brief History
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 9 14:40
Brief History of a Family
China｜2024｜99min
Director: Lin Jianjie
Cast: Zu Feng / Guo Keyu / Sun Xilun / Lin Muran
Synopsis: An accident on the playground brings the mysterious high schooler Yan Shuo into the life of his classmate Tu Wei. As a friendship buds, Yan Shuo gets to know Tu Wei's parents. He discovers that the seemingly happy family of three, free from financial worries, each harbors their own secrets and emotional knots. Just as Yan Shuo brings a different kind of vitality to their lives, Tu Wei's family notices the worsening scars on Yan Shuo's body. A sudden event intertwines the fates of the four even more tightly.
Spanish Film Week
Carmen
(Pre-screening: Opening Ceremony)
December 6 10:30
Carmen
Spain｜1983｜101min
Director: Carlos Saura
Cast: Antonio Gades / Laura del Sol / Paco de Lucía
Synopsis: Dance star and choreographer Antonio is preparing to film the famous opera Carmen by French composer Bizet. Obsessed with the tragedy Carmen, Antonio has been searching for the right actress to play the heroine, Carmen. When a female dancer also named Carmen appears, Antonio immediately decides to cast her in the lead role. Antonio is deeply attracted by the unique temperament of the young and sexy Carmen, and devotes great effort to training her to become a truly outstanding "Carmen." During rehearsals, he gradually develops an irresistible desire for Carmen, but the free-spirited Carmen refuses to be constrained and falls in love with someone else. The entanglement of love and death gradually blurs the boundary between drama and reality, and the two unknowingly fall into it, unable to extricate themselves.
Special Screening
This Friday's Playground
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 10 13:00
Friday, Funfair
China Premiere｜China｜2024｜99min
Director: Zeng Zhi
Cast: Ying Ze / Zi Xiangyu / Lai Man / Liu Jingyu
Synopsis: Nurse Song Qian is writing down her to-do list in her notebook as usual. What is different is that on this morning, Song Qian discovers her husband's long-held secret, and her husband, having no intention of explaining, simply leaves without saying goodbye. Song Qian has to take on more trivial matters in the family: the upcoming surgery for her daughter Yuanyuan and the increasingly fading memory of her mother, Old Zhang, make her once-routine life no longer so easy.
Umbilical Cord
(Post-screening Q&A with Filmmakers)
December 7 19:00
The Cord of Life
China｜2022｜96min
Director: Qiao Sixue
Cast: Badema / Yider / Niheya / Suriya / Zhuola
Synopsis: Musician Arus, dissatisfied with his brother's way of caring for their mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, resolves to take her back to the grassland to find the home in her memory. To prevent his mother from getting lost, Arus ties a rope around both of their waists. This umbilical cord-like connection establishes a wondrous "role-reversing" bond between mother and son, guiding them as they roam deep into the grassland. As their love transforms from mutual constraint into understanding and freedom, the mother finally returns to her spiritual homeland, and Arus attains peace and the strength of love.
*Post-screening information is subject to actual circumstances
