Far East Film Festival, Italian celebration of Asian cinema, moves online with live streams and videos to cope with lockdown
- Coronavirus has forced festival online, but that may not be a bad thing, its director says. ‘We can reach people overseas who would not normally come to Udine’
- Audience dialogues with guests such as Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow are part of the festival, and she hopes to have some this year, live-streamed if possible
The show must go on for Sabrina Baracetti, director of Italy’s popular Udine Far East Film Festival – and in this case, “on” means “online”.
“It was a hard decision for us to make, because the starting point of our festival was to bring people together to watch films and meet the directors and actors. That’s a big part of what we do,” Baracetti says. However, cinemas in Udine, the picturesque town in northern Italy where the festival is held, are still closed because of the pandemic.
“If we go online, we can keep the festival alive, so that’s what we have decided to do,” Baracetti says. This year, it will run on the web from June 26 to July 4.
The festival, which began 23 years ago with a “test” event devoted to Hong Kong films, says that Asian film fans around the globe will be able to view this year’s film programme via the website MYmovies.it.