Otherwise the two-week festival does its best to live up to its international tag. More than 200 classics, documentaries and rarely seen gems from across the globe play alongside exuberant Indian musicals and Asian movies from Iran to Japan. Inevitably, Hong Kong cinema takes center stage. Festival senior manager Lo Tak-sing is keen to showcase new talent. Our proximity helps us feel trends and we give small films an international stage.
Independent producers trust in our having that feeling.
Director Fruit Chan might take issue with that. His Made in Hong Kong was the critical hit of 1997. Yet it failed to make an impression on last year's programmers, who relegated the work to a small press screening. Chan's film is at the vanguard of an indie movement which is making waves even as mainstream Hong Kong cinema flounders. Films such as Mark Chan's lyrical Largo and Fugue and After the Crescent, Chang Wai-hung's tale of a pregnant teenager, garnered critical plaudits.