10 must-see movies at the Macau international film festival this year, all available online for viewers in Hong Kong and Macau

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has seen a heartbreaking number of film festivals around the world close this year, with their futures still in the balance. Many others have pivoted to online-only experiences, giving punters the opportunity to enjoy some of the year’s best films from the safety and relative comfort of their own homes.

Following this trend, the 5th International Film Festival and Awards Macao (IFFAM), which runs from December 3 to 8, will be available to residents of Hong Kong and Macau via a dedicated streaming platform. Tickets can be bought directly from the IFFAM festival website, and they give viewers a 48-hour window to watch films after their scheduled screening time.

Inevitably, this year’s line-up is a scaled-down selection compared with previous editions, but nevertheless features a host of new works from some of the world’s most exciting filmmakers, both established and up-and-coming.

Festival patrons will also be able to watch a series of virtual masterclasses from celebrated filmmakers such as Hirokazu Koreeda ( Shoplifters ), Hur Jin-ho (One Fine Spring Day) and Ning Hao ( Crazy Racer ), as well as actors Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings) and Nina Hoss (Phoenix).

Below is our recommendation of 10 films that are not to be missed at this year’s festival programme:

Limbo

Ben Sharrock’s brilliantly deadpan dissection of cultural divides settles somewhere between the weirdness of Greek film director Yorgos Lanthimos and the absurdist films of Sweden’s Roy Andersson.

It follows a quartet of refugees who are confined to a remote Scottish island as they await the outcome of their asylum claims. These immigrant hopefuls are subjected to a series of surreal – and wholly misjudged – cultural awareness classes, which only further alienate the already confused and displaced students.

The unwelcoming locals and desolate wilderness could not be more different than their war-torn homelands, yet scarcely represent the freedoms they desperately seek.

Falling

Academy Award nominee Viggo Mortensen writes, directs and stars in this semi-autobiographical drama about the strained relationship between a happily married gay man and his cantankerous father.

Lance Henriksen, journeyman star of hundreds of genre films including Aliens and Hard Target, gives an astonishing performance as the ageing patriarch slowly succumbing to dementia, in an all-round impressive directorial debut from 62-year-old Mortensen.

Uncompromising in its portrayal of tough love and unbreakable family bonds, Falling also features a cameo from Mortensen’s frequent collaborator, the Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg.

Back to the Wharf

Chinese director Li Xiaofeng follows up 2017’s Ash with another visually arresting neo noir mystery that intertwines a long-forgotten crime with the country’s own chequered past.

With actor Huang Bo as the executive producer, Back to the Wharf stars Zhang Yu as a young man returning to his hometown for his mother’s funeral, reconnecting with his father and becoming romantically involved with a former classmate. His return also unearths a dark secret relating to a death 15 years earlier – which was the very impetus for him leaving home in the first place.

A Dream of a Lifetime

Before becoming a singer and actor, Alex Fong Lik-sun represented Hong Kong in swimming at the Sydney Olympics in Australia in 2000. Twenty years later, Fong sets out to swim around Hong Kong Island, to raise money and awareness for sustainable water charity A Drop of Life.

Yoshi Hon and Ricky Hayashi’s short documentary follows Fong on his long, arduous journey, as he works on his fitness and learns how to swim in rough ocean seas. The result is a powerful, inspiring story of determination and perseverance against seemingly impossible odds.

Relic

Quite possibly this writer’s favourite film of 2020 so far, Natalie Erika James’ feature debut is a beautifully observed family drama that also stands as one of the most effective horror films in recent memory.

Drawing well-deserved comparisons to Hereditary and The Babadook , Relic reunites three generations of women from the same fractured family in a remote, dilapidated house, where decades of unresolved secrets permeate through the damp and mould. Deftly balancing strong characters and personal traumas with terrifying scares and some gleefully sticky gore, Relic delivers the full package.

The Paper Tigers

Three childhood friends now easing into middle age are forced to dust off their teenage kung fu skills after their martial arts master is mysteriously murdered.

The debut feature from Vietnamese-American director Tran Quoc Bao is a heart-warming blend of comedy, drama and relatively high-kicking action set in the northwest United States, featuring a trio of down-on-their-luck best friends whose lives have failed spectacularly to take flight.

Hong Kong action fans will delight in this loving homage to the classics of yesteryear.

A Balance

Winner of the New Currents Award at this year’s Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, A Balance is a profound morality play from rising star filmmaker Yujiro Harumoto.

In the film, promising Japanese actress Kumi Takiuchi plays an ambitious television journalist who approaches a group of teenagers after one of their classmates commits suicide after being abused. She soon finds herself in an ethical quandary when she learns that her own father, himself a teacher, is guilty of inappropriate behaviour with one of his own students.

Another Round

Mads Mikkelsen and The Hunt director Thomas Vinterberg raise a glass to the absurdities of masculinity in this wonderfully observed comedy.

Mikkelsen plays one of four middle-aged male friends, all high-school teachers, who embark on an ill-advised experiment to see if maintaining a specific blood alcohol level will improve their lives. What begins as harmless drunken fun inevitably spirals out of control, threatening the stability of their families, careers and friendships through a heady cocktail of acerbic humour and existential angst.

First Cow

A pair of unlikely loners heading west across 1820s America embark on an opportunistic business venture that nurtures a lasting friendship in Kelly Reichardt’s latest film.

Adapted from Jon Raymond’s novel The Half-Life, the film is a story of migrants, or rather a nation built by immigrants converging from all over the world. Orion Lee plays a Chinese native searching for gold, who partners with John Magaro’s cook, but the true star of the film is the prized cow that forms the linchpin of their culinary enterprise.

Under the Open Sky

Japanese acting heavyweight Koji Yakusho plays a former yakuza gangster released from prison after serving 13 years for murder in Miwa Nishikawa’s heart-wrenching drama. As he attempts to reintegrate back into normal society, the lifelong criminal’s code of honour and ingrained stubbornness cause needless drama and conflict wherever he goes.

The 64-year-old Yakusho has never been better, evoking great sympathy for his sensitive, multifaceted performance, while Nishikawa continues to evolve into one of Japan’s most accomplished female filmmakers.

For full programme details, visit the festival website at iffamacao.com

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