5th New York Asian Film Festival

June 16-July 1, 2006 at Anthology Film Archives and the ImaginAsian

The New York Asian Film Festival is back. And it's five years old! Five years ago, the five of us in Subway Cinema had no film festival experience, no money, no connections - nothing but an intense love for Asian films and a large amount of stupidity that made us think we could put together a film festival focusing on the best contemporary Asian movies.

Five years later we still have no money, we still have no connections, and we're still stupid. But somehow we've premiered movies from Suzuki Seijun, Park Chan-Wook, Takashi Miike, Zhang Yimou, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Johnnie To and many many more. Is it dumb luck? Black magic? Secret super science? No one knows, least of all us.

While many film festivals are little more than billboards for their corporate sponsors, the New York Asian Film Festival is the only 100% audience-supported film festival in the world. Every year we watch about 200 movies and select 30 of the highest-grossing, most crowd-pleasing, award-winning films from China, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, India and Japan. And every year an audience of thrill-seekers and movie-lovers jam the screenings, forcing us to get bigger. So come celebrate our fifth birthday with us by watching the latest and best movies from Asia, hand-selected for your viewing pleasure. No arthouse cynicism. No trendy gloom and doom. Just futuristic motion picture entertainment set on hyperdrive and mainlined directly into your brain.

This year we have two venues: the historic Anthology Film Archives in the East Village and the New York City’s premiere Asian American theater, The ImaginAsian, on the Upper East Side.

Also, we’ll be presenting a special screening of Gu Changwei’s Silver Bear winner, Peacock in conjunction with the Brooklyn International Film Festival (on June 11 at 7pm) as a gesture of goodwill, peace and reconciliation between the boroughs.

No Singing. No Dancing. No Mercy: The Films of Ram Gopal Varma is a sidebar of four movies from India’s most accomplished director, including the world premiere of his latest film, Shiva. RGV has remade the Bollywood film-scape with his hard-hitting crime and horror flicks and we’re very proud to present his films to New York audiences.

Takashi Miike weighs in with his Lord of the Rings-sized Great Yokai War, and Malaysia delivers its big box office hit, Gangster, featuring super popular Malay actor Rosyam Nor in the three lead roles. We’ll also be screening Thailand’s crunky horror blockbuster, Art of the Devil 2, directed by seven filmmakers known as The Ronin Team. Funky Forest: The First Contact is the latest movie from Katsuhito Ishii whose The Taste of Tea won last year’s Audience Award and it’s the strangest movie to hit screens since Eraserhead.

In 2003, New York critics raved about Ryuichi Hiroki’s Vibrator when we showed it at that year’s festival and this year we’re excited to screen his latest masterpiece, It’s Only Talk. Wildly influential Korean director, Lee Myung-Se, will be screening his controversial swordplay romance, Duelist, and in case you were worried that there weren’t enough masked wrestlers in Oh! My Zombie Mermaid and Beetle, The Horn King feature helicopter-kicking wrestlers, masked and otherwise. And don’t miss Ski Jumping Pairs — Road To Torino 2006 a slyly surreal send-up of sports documentaries in the spirit of This is Spinal Tap.

Films
AB TAK CHHAPPAN (2004)
ALWAYS – SUNSET ON THIRD STREET (2005)
ART OF THE DEVIL 2 (2005)
BEETLE, THE HORN KING (2005)
A BITTERSWEET LIFE (2005)
BLOOD RAIN (2005)
COMPANY (2002)
CROMARTIE HIGH SCHOOL (2005)
DUELIST (2005)
EK HASINA THI (2004)
FEATHER IN THE WIND (2004)
FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT (2005)
GANGSTER (2005)
THE GREAT YOKAI WAR (2005)
HAIR (2004)
IT’S ONLY TALK (2005)
KRRISH (2006)
LINDA LINDA LINDA (2005)
THE MAGICIANS (2005)
OH! MY ZOMBIE MERMAID (2005)
PACCHIGI! WE SHALL OVERCOME SOMEDAY (2004)
PEACOCK (2005)
SHINOBI (2005)
SHIVA (2005)
SKI JUMPING PAIRS: ROAD TO TORINO 2006 (2005)
SKI JUMPING PAIRS 2007: FLYING TEST (2006)
A STRANGER OF MINE (2005)
UMIZARU 2: TEST OF TRUST (2006)
WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL (2005)

Guests
Bade Haji Azmi (GANGSTER)
Eiichiro Hasumi (UMIZARU 2)
Ryuta Sato (UMIZARU 2)
Takashi Yamazaki (ALWAYS – SUNSET ON THIRD STREET)

Links

NYAFF 2006 Report - Part 1 - Part 2 (IMPACT, August and September, 2006)
Success Breeds Confidence: Korean Movies at the NYAFF (Bright Lights Film Journal, August 1, 2006)
The New Eastern Standard (TIME, June 23, 2006)
Continental Drift (Time Out New York, June 15-21, 2006)
Year Five of Showcasing the Best of Modern Asian Cinema, at NYAFF '06 (IndieWire, June 19, 2006)
The Approval Matrix (New York, June 19, 2006)
For Fans of Asian Films, Two Weeks of Brash Bliss (The New York Times, June 16, 2006)
Not just Gamera at New York Asian Film Fest (Washington Square News, June 15, 2006)
Pulp Fictions (The Village Voice, June 6, 2006)