Aiming to bridge the gap between the West and the East, while also emphasising Macau’s heritage and making the region into a growing cultural destination, the third International Film Festival and Awards ‧ Macao (IFFAM) is getting ready to welcome a slew of new guests. This year’s edition, which spans seven different programmes, will run from 8-14 December.

Eleven films are included in the International Competition of the third IFFAM, all directed by debutant or sophomore filmmakers, and the programme is curated by the IFFAM’s artistic director, Mike Goodridge. The festival will open with Green Book by US director Peter Farrelly, while acclaimed Chinese helmer Zhang Yimou will bring the event to a close with his latest work, Shadow.

The 11 films that will be vying for the $60,000 (€53,000) IFFAM award winning prize are Ága [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Milko Lazarov
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intervista: Gustav Möller
scheda film] by Gustav Möller (Denmark), The Good Girls by Alejandra Marquez Abella (Mexico), Jesus by Hiroshi Okuyama (Japan), The Man Who Feels No Pain by Vasan Bala (India), School’s Out [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Sébastien Marnier
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Other programme highlights include a new competition dubbed “New Chinese Cinema”, which will present six films from Chinese-speaking territories; a non-competitive genre slate called “Flying Daggers”; and the “Director’s Choice” retrospective, where three Asian directors (Mabel Cheung, Erik Matti and Edwin) will select three classic non-Asian genre films that have had an impact on them, and three non-Asian filmmakers (Phillip Noyce, Paul Schrader and Ben Wheatley) will do likewise with three Asian movies. Finally, IFFAM’s Talent Ambassador, Nicolas Cage, is due to hold a master class.

The Industry Hub of the festival (9-11 December) will unspool across three different platforms: the IFFAM Project Market (IPM), the IFFAM WIP, where three projects in their final stages will be showcased, and the Macao Forum, which is mainly a closed-session event.

The IPM has selected 14 feature-length film projects, with the majority of them by Asian talents, while seven projects are directed by women. The European projects are represented by up-and-coming filmmakers such as Brit Hope Dickson Leach’s (The Levelling [+leggi anche:
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The complete selection of the 2018 IFFAM Project Market is as follows:

Ajooma - He Shuming
Producers: Anthony Chen, Tan Si En (South Korea/Singapore)

Amazing Elisa - Sadrac González-Perellón
Producer: Diego Rodríguez (Spain)

Black Lotus - Roseanne Liang
Producer: Timothy White (New Zealand/China)

Dogman - Tamae Garateguy
Producer: Silvia Rodríguez (Argentina)

Game of Identity - Leon Cheng
Producer: Stephan Lam (China)

Hong Kong Sister - Yan Ting Yuen
Producer: Maarten Swart (Netherlands/Hong Kong)

Klepto - Hope Dickson Leach
Producer: Christopher Granier-Deferre (UK/China)

Lost Paradise - Tracy Choi
Producer: Man Man Lai (Macau)

Love Song - Il-gon Song
Producers: Catherine Fitzgerald, Sebastian Lee (South Korea/New Zealand)

Nine Lives - Siri Rødnes
Producers: Gavin Humphries, Josephine Rose (UK)

Temple - Nguyen-Anh Nguyen
Producer: John Christou (Canada)

The RIP - Rollo Hollins
Producers: Lundi Shackleton, Philippe Palacios (USA/Asia/Europe)

Top Talent - Rachel Han Xu
Producers: Zhu Huilong, Wang Haiyun (China/Canada)

Wonderland - Chao Koi Wang
Producer: Gao Yitian (Macau)