From Stephen Chow’s quiet visit to Jackie Chan’s Panama hats spree, Hong Kong memories from Udine Far East Film Festival’s 25 years celebrating Asian cinema
- Johnnie To, Anita Yuen, Peter Chan and Ringo Lam were among the Hong Kong cinema greats at the first festival devoted to their work in Udine, northern Italy
- They spread the word and soon Donnie Yen, Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan came to meet fans, talk about their movies and, in Chan’s case, buy a stack of hats
Italy’s Udine Far East Film Festival (FEFF), the first international festival to focus wholly on commercial movies from Asia, has its 25th anniversary this year.
Although the FEFF screens films from all over the region, it’s always had a special relationship with Hong Kong.
We talk to the festival’s director Sabrina Baracetti, coordinator Thomas Bertacche and campus director Mathew Scott, and to Hong Kong films consultant Tim Youngs, about their memories of Hong Kong at the FEFF over the years.
What are your memories of your first trip to Hong Kong in 1997, when you came to plan the “test festival”, which was only Hong Kong films?
Sabrina Baracetti: It was my first trip to Hong Kong, and Derek Elley (a former Variety critic and the co-founder of the festival) showed me the skyline in Kowloon. I could not believe how beautiful it looked – I did not expect that, and I will remember that sight forever.
We didn’t go to special screenings that year, we just went to see the films that were showing in the local theatres.
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Also at that time, Hong Kong films did not really get invited to film festivals, so that confused them too. They wondered why people at foreign festivals would be interested in seeing their work.
After the first festival, the Hong Kong stars told all their friends about Udine.
Baracetti: The first time all the Hong Kong film guests, like Anita Yuen Wing-yee, Peter Chan, Johnnie To and Ringo Lam, came to the festival, no one in Udine had a clue who they were! We had to explain to the local audience that they were famous people!
The interesting thing is that the stars all had such a good time in Udine that when they got back to Hong Kong, they told everyone about us – and suddenly everyone wanted to come the next year.
I remember that Stephen Chow enjoyed having some time to himself when he came in 2000.
Thomas Bertacche: Stephen Chow was very shy when he was at the festival, and he was so happy as he had time on his own and wasn’t surrounded by people when he went outside, which he would have been in Hong Kong.
He had a very good relationship with Derek Elley, who really understood his movies, and they talked a lot. At the time, his films may have been a bit too different for a lot of our audience!
Michael Hui enjoyed watching his old films in 2011.
Hui seemed to take a genuine delight in the reaction to his films – mostly from the ’70s and ’80s – which were still well received decades later and on the other side of the world.
Hui talked about how he was constantly amazed by the power cinema had to connect across cultures and how impressed he was by the “mad movie lovers” who had surrounded him throughout the week at Udine.
Brigitte Lin had a pleasant surprise when she took to the stage in 2018.
Baracetti: It was actually very difficult to get Brigitte to come, as she didn’t want to appear at any big events at that time. We asked her to come through some of her friends, and she accepted.
When she got here, she didn’t hide herself away, she spoke a lot and was very active during the festival. Her daughter Xing Ailin came, too. We invited her as a surprise for [Brigitte], and she didn’t know she was there until she was on the stage in the theatre. It was a very touching moment. She was always smiling after that.
Patrick Lung Kong found a whole new audience in Udine.
Tim Youngs: A big highlight was in 2010, when we had the influential 1960s and ’70s director Patrick Lung Kong join us to show seven of his films. It was the first overseas retrospective of his movies, and he was incredibly emotional as a new audience discovered his work.
He also made a point of seeing new Hong Kong films in Udine and spent time talking with emerging directors. It’s been terrific to see guests find a fresh appreciation for their films – especially with movies we’ve felt were neglected in Hong Kong or internationally.
Johnnie To became part of the Udine family, and you even hosted a big birthday party for him once.
Baracetti: Johnnie has been to the festival so many times, he’s like family member to us at Udine now.
When we first met him, we were very big fans of his films, and we respected him as an artist before he was known internationally. He always likes to come back to the festival when he can.
Audiences discovered that Chor Yuen did more than make martial arts films.
Some of those had never been shown with English subtitles before, and video copies were poor and scarce.
Similarly, showing numerous old TV works from the 1970s – many of them also subtitled by us – helped the audience get a better understanding of the origins of the Hong Kong cinema’s New Wave.
Major high points on Hong Kong cinema have come with getting rarely seen but historically important old films screened in Europe – some for the first time.
Jackie Chan came in 2015 and bought a lot of … hats.
A lot of his fans were here, and the way that he managed to deal with them was incredible. He made time for everyone. I remember a fan running hard, trying to get to him, and he stopped and shouted, “Don’t worry, I am here, I’m not going away!”
He met everyone and many people had their picture taken with him. He drank a lot of coffee, too. I remember we went to a hat shop and he bought everybody hats. He bought Panama hats for everyone – he was very popular with that shopkeeper because of that!
