The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) has unveiled the first wave of features for its 22nd edition and announced that Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki will receive the Screen International Rising Star award.
NYAFF will run from July 14-30 at the city’s Film at Lincoln Center, with a programme of more than 60 titles, and Suzuki will be presented with the award recognising emerging talent from East Asia on July 15.
Suzuki has been acting on screen for more than 15 years, with a string of roles in Japanese TV series such as historical drama Segodon, Ship of Theseus and Tokyo MER: Mobile Emergency Room. But he has been gaining increased attention for his big screen roles in films such as Last Of The Wolves, for which he won best supporting actor at last year’s Japanese Academy Awards.
More recently, Suzuki starred in Daishi Matsunaga’s LGBTQ+ romance drama Egoist, which played in competition at Tokyo International Film Festival and has sold to a raft of internationally territories including the US. The film will screen as part of NYAFF’s line-up.
The festival is set to open with the North American premiere of Korean genre mashup Killing Romance and director Lee Won-suk will attend the screening with lead actor Lee Sun-kyun, known for his roles in Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite and A Hard Day. ( (Scroll down for full list of titles)From Hong Kong, titles include Soi Cheang’s Mad Fate, Amos Why’s Everyphone Everywhere
, Lau Kok-rui’s
The Sunny Side Of The Street and new 4K restoration of Patrick Tam’s 1982 Hong Kong New Wave feature Nomad (Director’s Cut).The lineup of titles from China includes a filmmaker-in-focus tribute to entrepreneur turned director and producer Zhang Wei, including hard-hitting films The Empty Nest, Factory Boss and The Rib (Director’s Cut). Also from China is Liu Jian’s
Art College 1994, which played in Competition at the Berlinale earlier this year.The festival’s South Korean lineup includes Lee Hae-young’s spy drama Phantom, Park Sung-kwang’s family comedy Bear Man, Lim Oh-jeong’s debut feature
Hail To Hell, and Kwak Eun-mi’s The Tour Guide, about a North Korean defector.Taiwanese titles include comedy thriller Bad Education, marking the directorial debut of star Kai Ko, LGBTQ+ action comedy Marry My Dead Body, and Gaga, by Taiwan’s first indigenous female director, Laha Mebow, who will be in attendance at the festival.NYAFF will again team with Korean Cultural Center New York and Film at Lincoln Center to co-host a free outdoor screening in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. This year’s title is Bong Joon Ho’s 2006 monster feature The Host
.As previously announced, acclaimed Hong Kong star and producer Louis Koo is set to receive the Extraordinary Star Asia Award for Exceptional Contribution to Asian Cinema on July 19. He will introduce the North America premiere of Cheuk Wan-chi’s Vital Signs
, in which he plays a veteran ambulance driver.Samuel Jamier, NYAFF executive director and president of the New York Asian Film Foundation, said: “As filmmakers from Asia continue to earn the lion’s share of top awards (and attention) on the international film festival circuit, this year’s selection shows that those are still trees hiding a forest of talent. It is a year of massive expansion for us at a time when a growing number of American filmmakers of Asian descent are conquering screens.”NYAFF will reveal further titles – including its Uncaged Competition lineup and closing film – in the coming weeks.
NYAFF 2023: first titlesChinaArt College 1994
| dir. Li dir. dir. Zhang Zhang Wei
A Woman
| dir. Wang Chao
Hong Kong
- A Light Never Goes Out | dir. Anastasia Tsang
- Everyphone Everywhere | dir. Amos Why
- In Broad Daylight | dir. dir. So Patrick Lau Kok-rui
- Vital Signs | dir. Cheuk Wan-chi
- Japan#Manhole
- | dir. Kazuyoshi KumakiriDecember
| dir. Anshul Chauhan
- Egoist | dir. dir. dir. Chihiro Ito
- Mayhem Girls | dir. Shinichi Fujita
- Motherhood | dir. Ryuichi Hiroki
- Mountain Woman | dir. Takeshi Fukunaga
- Okiku And The World | dir. Junji Sakamoto
- PhilippinesI Love You, Beksman
- | dir. Per Anna Isabelle MatutinaWhere Is The Lie?
| dir. Quark Henares
- SingaporeGeylang
- | dir. Boi KwongSouth Korea
- Bear Man | dir. Park Sung-kwang
- Hail To Hell | dir. Lim dir. Lee Won-suk
- Phantom | dir. Lee Hae-young
- Rebound | dir. Chang Hang-jun
- A Tour Guide | dir. Kwak Eun-mi
- TaiwanBad Education
- | dir. Kai Lin Chun-yangGaga
| dir. dir. dir. Giddens Ko
- ThailandKitty The Killer
- | dir. Lee ThongkhamYou & Me & Me
- | dirs. Weawwan Hongvivatana, Wanweaw HongvivatanaVietnam
Glorious Ashes
- | dir. Bui Thac ChuyenDiasporic Cinema
A-Town Boyz
- (US) | dir. Eu Isher SahotaJohnnie To named Malaysia festival jury head, Sylvia Chang to receive honour
