WHEN IT COMES to promoting films that are a little left of what's considered mainstream, Gary Mak Sing-hei and Esther Yeung Wai-lan wear their hearts on their sleeves.
As associate director of Broadway Cinematheque, Mak regularly offers cinema-goers the city's most eclectic selection of films. And Yeung, as general manager of independent film promotion body Ying E Chi, spends her days hunting projects from the lesser lights of the local industry to fund and support, giving them an avenue through which their work can reach the wider public.
For both, these aren't so much jobs as passions. So it's of little surprise that they're excited about their annual collaboration, the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival.
The event, which runs from today until October 11, presents 34 films from throughout the region. After a quick scan of the programme, it's little wonder that tickets have been selling fast. It includes Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest offering, Three Times, Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Takeshi Kitano's Blood and Bones and The Bow from Hong Kong's Kim Ki-duk.
There will also be a series of seminars at which directors will talk about their productions with the audiences after screenings.
'The most important thing for us is highlighting new talent from around the region and to recognise and support new Hong Kong directors,' says Mak. 'A lot of them haven't been made in the traditional manner. They come from outside the studio system.'
'We've both been in the film industry for a long time,' says Yeung. 'And the same problems are faced on the local scene that have always been there. It's hard to get cinemas to screen anything but blockbusters - even those films sometimes only last a week.