Lau seeks role behind the scene
Andy Lau Tak-wah wants to take a break from acting so he can get behind projects aimed at boosting the local movie industry.
'I don't have any movie projects on at the moment, so I want to focus on behind-the-scenes work, coming up with art and film ideas with [director] Johnnie To Kei-fung,' he said.
The award-winning actor (left) was this week invited to be ambassador for this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF). The festival, in its 30th year, will run from April 4 to April 19.
Last year Lau played a major role at the festival: he was in 11 movies screened at the festival.
'I used to think it would be great if the HKIFF asked me to be its spokesperson because it sounds very artistic,' said the 44-year-old. 'But the fact is, the more artistic it is, the more limited the audience base it gets.'
Lau said he was trying to help the festival reach a wider audience. 'All international film festivals in Asia are commercialised. But they can still have artistic elements in their programmes because they have strong support from their governments.' He urged the government to provide more funding and infrastructural support to the festival.
Lau said he would go to watch mainland movies such as director Zhang Yuan's Little Red Flowers and films featured in the HDV (high definition video) Asian Digital Competition.
Lau is one of the best actor nominees of this year's Hong Kong Film Awards to be held on April 8. His role in Wait 'Til You're Older will compete against Tony Leung Ka-fai (Election and Everlasting Regret), Aaron Kwok Fu-shing (Divergence) and Simon Yam Tat-wah (Election).
Lau won best actor at the 2000 and 2004 awards for his performances in Running Out of Time and Running On Karma, respectively.
