2019 Festival Lineup
Opening Film
Just Mercy, USA
Synopsis: Just Mercy shadows world-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson as he recounts his experiences and details the case of a condemned death row prisoner whom he fought to free.
AWFF Opening Film Screening
Closing Film
Weathering With You, Japan
Official Japanese Entry for 2020 Oscars Best International Feature Film
Synopsis: GKIDS proudly presents the highly-anticipated new film from director Makoto Shinkai and producer Genki Kawamura, the creative team behind the critically-acclaimed, global smash hit Your Name. The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky…
Centerpiece Film
Meiduo, China (World Premiere)
Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Traumatized by the tragic death of a Syrian boy, war journalist Meido returns to China to shoot a documentary in Tibet. During the two-month shoot, she not only finds herself deeply entangled in a love affair with Dawa, a Tibetan man and Monk-to-be, but is forced to face her inner demons of death and destiny when she discovers a wild “wolf boy” Suo Hua in the forest. Wading through the dense mystery of Tibetan highland, Meido forges ahead against all the odds on her journey of soul- searching that breaks, strengthens, and ultimately heals her.
Tribute to Wu Tian Ming
The Old Well, China
Synopsis: A married village worker teams up with an old girlfriend to try to dig a well for his water-starved village. The well collapses and they are trapped. Their enforced confinement leads to them exploring their feelings for each other and those around them.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Life, China
Synopsis: Story of a village boy Jialin Gao abandoned his fiance to go to a big city, he hopes he can find his dream in the big city but lost everything in the end.
Genre: Drama
River Without Bouys, China
Synopsis: The film describes the frustrating experience and love of Pan Laowu, who drains off wastewater. It reflects the suffering brought about by the ultra-left route
Genre: Drama
Official Selection
The Bull, Russia
Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the Israeli border wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has been injured in an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father’s love won’t give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200-meter distance becomes a 200-kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall.
The Guardian of the Light, Kazakhstan
Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: The end of the World War II. Soviet soldiers come to a small town in Germany. A lot of buildings are ruined and there are still sounds of bomb explosions and whistling bullets. Young kazakh soldier saves an old civil German man from death and helps him to hide in a safe place. The old man gives him a bag with the most valuable thing that he has - a portable projector and some films. 30 years later the former soldier became a legendary figure. He travels to small distant villages and pastures to show films. He spent his life travelling from one village to another, from house to house. The children called him Tarzan, because of the film «Tarzan» that they like so much. But professional cinema theaters come to big and small cities replacing our Tarzan to more remote villages. Once he was attacked and killed.
Memories of My Body, Indonesia
Oscar submission for Best International Feature Film.
Synopsis: Juno is just a child when his father abandons him in their village of Center Java. Alone now, he joins a Lengger dance center where men shape their feminine appearance and movement. But the sensuality and sexuality that come from dance and bodies, mixed with the violent social and political Indonesian environment, force Juno to move from village to village. Even if on this journey Juno receives attention and love from his dance teachers, his weird aunty, his old uncle, a handsome boxer and a Warok, he still has to face by himself the battlefield that his body is becoming.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Laal Kabootar, Pakistan
Synopsis: Adeel is a cab driver and conman with dreams to leave Karachi and start a new life in Dubai. Aliya Malik is a widow desperate to find and bring justice to the target killers who murdered her husband.
In a circumstantial meeting, the two realise they can help each other. Adeel, through his contacts on the streets, can help Aliya find her husband’s murderer. In exchange, she’ll give him enough money to flee to Dubai. But neither of them realise they’re in over their heads, and so begins an intriguing cat and mouse game through the streets of Karachi.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Finding Farideh, Iran
Synopsis: Finding Farideh is about an Iranian woman named Farideh, who, adopted by a Dutch couple 40 years ago, overcomes her fears and travels to her motherland Iran for the first time in search of her birth parents. She meets three families who claim to be her real family, has a DNA test with them and discovers her Iranian Identity and culture...
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Morine, Lebanon
Synopsis: The year is 620 A.D., North Lebanon. Living with God is men's privilege and the most unreachable women's right. Stubborn as she is, the 20 year-old revolutionary girl breaks the rules and endures all the consequences.
Aurora, Kyrgzystan (North American Premiere)
Synopsis: The sanatorium 'Aurora', situated next to the mountainous Issykul Lake in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, was built in Soviet times and has not changed since. The sanatorium serves as a mirror of the entire country with all events happening in one day. Often tragic, sometimes comedic, the situations reflect some of the country's main problems today, including the violation of women's rights, poverty, corruption and Chinese expansion.
Genre: Drama
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Shindisi, Georgia
Synopsis: A story of the film is based on real events that occurred during the Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008. Shindisi is a name of the place where Russian occupation forces sieged Georgian military after peace corridor was promised, this is when ordinary villagers took risks to save wounded Georgian soldiers.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
1982, Lebanon (North American Premiere)
Synopsis: On the last day of school in the mountains, during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, 11-year-old Wissam is determined to tell his classmate Joanna that he loves her, while his teachers - on different sides of the political divide - try to mask their fears.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
The Golden Throne, Kazakhstan
Synopsis: The first volume of the trilogy “The Nomads” of the outstanding writer Ilyas Yesenberlin - "Kazakh Khanate. Diamond sword" historical film based on the novel"Diamond sword" includes the epoch of the first kings of the Kazakh Horde - the kings of Kerey and Zhanibek who led the nomadic Kazakh tribes. The middle of the XV century. The time, when several nationalities (Ulus) were formed instead of the ruined places of the world ruler Genghis Khan Empire. In 1465, one of the nationalities (Ulus) - the direct successor of the "Ak Orda" state, Orys khan generation, Kerey and Zhanibek sultans settled nomadic tribes, which were against Kok-Orda ruler Abulkhair Shaibani, under the same flag, founded the "Kazakh Khanate" of Ak Orda. But did they get independence so easily? Abulkhair Khan, who has been the king of the Orys khan and the sole ruler for 40 years, started his destructive campaign against his enemies Kerey and Zhanibek, with the support of the Ma'ruenahr commanders. However, this was a great loss for Abulkhair khan and he died. Thus, the Kazakhs were able to return the capital of the Shaiban tribes - Syganak and their Golden throne without loss.
The Sun Above Me Never Sets, Russia
Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: Having quarreled with his father Altan goes to work in the North. He will have to spend a month alone on a deserted island. But soon a neighbor appears. He is old Baibal who has come to the island to spend the last days of his life there. He asks Altan to bury him next to his wife. But the guy finds out that long ago the old man’s daughter went missing. He talks the old man into publishing an entertainment blog to find his daughter and put of the man’s death. Every day Altan does his best to stimulate the old man to live another beautiful day.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Hot Bread, Uzbekistan
Synopsis: Hot Bread tells the story of Zulfiya, a teenage girl who lives with her grandmother in a small Uzbek village, who wishes to move to the city to live with her working mother.
The Secret of a Leader, Kazakhstan (North American Premiere)
Golden Globe Submission in the Foreign Language Category
Synopsis: When Kanat hits the bottom, still living with his mother at 40 passed, stuck mid level in his bank job, fantasizing from afar on girls, the unexpected encounter with his evil half, longtime friend Daniyar makes him take a moral u turn and his life takes a plunge in the dark.
At the background we see the country with it’s fake patriotic ideas and national self-affirmation.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Ne Zha, China
Synopsis: A young boy, Nezha, is birthed from a heavenly pearl by the Primeval Lord of Heaven. Born with unique powers, Nezha finds himself as an outcast who is hated and feared. Destined by prophecy to bring destruction to the world, the young boy must choose between good and evil in order to break the shackles of fate and become the hero.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
In the Life of Music, Cambodia
Synopsis: In the Life of Music is a powerful intergenerational tale that explores love, war, and a family’s relationship to: ‘Champa Battambang,’ made famous by Sinn Sisamouth (The King of Cambodian Music). Exploring three different decades, it depicts the lives of people whose world is inevitably transformed by the emergence of the Khmer Rouge Regime.
Timelife, Syria
Synopsis: Timelife is an umbilical cord of faces shot over the course of 10 years and shapes the essence of love and life. How to let life make its way out of the maternal womb? How to build a family when you had to leave the motherland? How to keep hope alive when even birds are hiding from bombings?We all carry a dream, the question is : How and with whom do you choose to give birth ?
Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: ES escapes from Palestine seeking an alternative homeland, only to find that Palestine is trailing behind him. The promise of a new life turns into a comedy of errors: however far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always reminds him of home. From award-winning director Elia Suleiman, a comic saga exploring identity, nationality and belonging, in which Suleiman asks the fundamental question: where is the place we can truly call home?
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
It Must Be Heaven, Palestine
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Baglilik Asli (Commitment - Asli), Turkey
Synopsis: Asli, a young mother who is trying to find a nanny to get back to work, finally meets young Gulnihal. Gulnihal is also a mother. With Gulnihal coming into her life, Asli faces her secrets which she has been avoiding herself.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
M for Malaysia, Malaysia
Synopsis: M for Malaysia documents the 2018 Malaysian General Elections when the people of Malaysia, led by a 92 year-old former Prime Minister, overthrew one of the longest ruling governments in the world. Despite endless barriers thrown at them, the tense campaign pushed on with the most surprising result in the country’s history.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Gully Boy, India
Synopsis: Murad Ahmed (Ranveer Singh), a final year college student, lives in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai. His abusive father Aftab Shakir Ahmed (Vijay Raaz) brings home a much younger second wife, much to the chagrin of the family. Murad nurtures a fascination for rap music. His longtime and possessive girlfriend Safeena Firdausi (Alia Bhatt) is training to be a surgeon and routinely meets him in secret. Forced to work part-time as a chauffeur after his father is injured, Murad starts to write, with his lyrics informed by the inequalities he observes while on the job. Making the acquaintance of local rapper Shrikant "MC Sher" Bhosle (Siddhant Chaturvedi) whom he saw performing in his college fest, he is drawn into performing his lyrics at underground shows and rap battles and eventually uploading a video on YouTube.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Lengthy Night, Armenia
Synopsis: An unusual stone ties together three stories set in the early 2000s, the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the 11th century.
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Parasite, South Korea
Synopsis: Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.
Hava, Maryam, Aesha
Synopsis: Through my frequent participations in festivals around the world, I’ve noticed an emergence of a new generation of talented Afghan filmmakers to which Sahraa, the director of this movie, belongs. After ten years of studying cinema and working on different movies, she moved back to her hometown, Kabul in order to offer an insight into Afghan society. When I met Sahraa for the first time and saw her documentaries in Antalya 2016, what grabbed my attention was that she had managed to bring together western techniques of cinema (she has a PhD of cinema from Slovakia) and her Afghan identity that made her film authentic and honest. She was determined to make her first feature film in Kabul with the money that she had been saving during many years of work, by using local actors and despite security risks that could put her life in danger. Witnessing her dedication as well as her crew’s to make this first independent film, I was determined to do what I can to finish this film and help it to be seen worldwide by as many people as possible.
Genre: Drama
Official Submission for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award®
Furie, Vietnam
Synopsis: When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her daughter home.
Special Screening
The Illegal, USA
Synopsis: A gritty, realistic story about an educated middle class kid from Daryganj, India who comes to Los Angeles after getting accepted into a prestigious film school. Due to an unfortunate turn of events, he is forced into working illegally on his student visa in a restaurant in order to survive . It doesn’t take long for the demands of his job to outweigh the demands of his master’s program. After some unforeseen familial events back home in Darygang, Hassan ’s core values and integrity is tested as destiny forces him to choose between his family and his dream.
Genre: Documentary
Divine Fury, Korea
Synopsis: Yong-hu, a world champion martial artist who believes in no God, only himself, suddenly develops stigmata on his palms. Visiting a church in hopes of healing the stigmata, he ends up saving Father AHN, who falls into danger while performing an exorcism. In this way he learns of the power of the stigmata. As time passes Yong-hu accepts his new calling and begins saving people who are possessed by demons, but then he must prepare for a final confrontation with the evil Jisin, who ensnares people with the power of the devil.
Genre: Comedy
The Grapes of Joy (Shiawase), Japan (Japan Film Days)
Synopsis: Haruna Soma (Riko Fukumoto) comes from Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido to Okayama, in western Japan, on a school trip. Her ailing grandmother has asked Haruna to buy her some of the region’s famous “Muscat of Alexandria” grapes as a souvenir gift, but Haruna loses her wallet, and the small amount of change she has left is only enough to buy two “Riku no Hoju”, a confectionary made from the alexandria grapes. Her grandmother expresses delight with the gift, and Haruna is moved to return to Okayama and apply for work at Minamoto Kitchoan, the company that makes them. Her winning smile convinces the company president to hire her, but her trainee assignments to shop sales, production, and product development do not go well, and she is sent out to assist at one of the vineyards that supply alexandria grapes. The farmer, Shinsuke Akiyoshi (Naoto Takenaka), does not want her help and tells her to leave, but she persists. Meeting another grower, Tatsuya Yashiki (Masataka Nakagauchi), she learns about grape-growing. Shinsuke, it turns out, lost his only son Taro ten years before, and is determined that his vineyard will end with him. Vines his son grafted just before he died are about to reach the end of their productive life, and Shinsuke plans to have them and their greenhouse destroyed. Haruna tries and fails to convince him to regraft these vines and thus keep Taro’s memory alive. Haruna was a national-level high-school curler until injury ended her career; her sister, still a curler, visits and suggests that Haruna return to Hokkaido, and she is about to do so when the area is hit with massive floods that leave Taro’s former greenhouse buried in a sea of mud. Haruna goes out to the vineyard and sets to work digging...
Genre: Drama
The First Republic, Russia
Synopsis: The newly built Soviet Union becomes a country of unique opportunities, pursuing labour and cultural victories. Bashkortostan, as the first republic of the new Russia, is experiencing its own heyday. Both science and culture are flourishing and art is becoming more people-oriented and closer to them. But then come the purges...
Genre: Drama, Historical
The Old Capital, Japan (Japan Film Days)
Synopsis: When they are twenty, two woman, twins born among the fragrant cedar-filled mountains of Kyoto and separated at birth, meet by chance at a summer festival in the old capital. One lives in the mountains working the trees, the other adopted by a couple running a traditional kimono shop. The city girl frets whether to continue the business. They meet, then part, the city girl giving her sister a silk kimono sash.
They never meet again. Twenty-three years later, their daughters, age twenty, face the future with the bewilderment of selecting an established path or one of their own. The mountains twin pursues her artistic dreams in Paris, while her sister chooses between the family shop and finding her own calling. Mothers guide daughters, but the choices must be their own, tangled with fate.
Genre: Animation, Drama
Chasing The Dream, USA
Synopsis: “CHASING THE DREAM: The New Chinese in America,” a new documentary by director Harrison Engle, profiles seven immigrants from China who have built successful and creative lives for themselves in United States. Their inspiring stories express the dynamism of the growing Chinese community in the U.S. and offer a fresh perspective on how immigrants have contributed to the growth and prosperity of America.
Genre: Documentary
“Passenger” from San Francisco (North American Premiere)
Synopsis: Aware that her time is running short, irascible Wu family matriarch Lily (Lisa Lu) is eager to repair the strained relationship with her adult daughter Mary (Michelle Krusiec) and help her shy 18-year-old granddaughter Emma (Rochelle Ying) find her voice. As her final wish, she persuades longtime friend Charlotte (Joely Fisher), Emma and Emma's best friend Karen (Tiffany Wu) to spring her from her Los Angeles nursing home and all four set out on a wild road trip up the coast to Carmel - without telling the girls' parents.
Genre: Detective, action, melodrama.
The Bravest, China
Synopsis: Jiang Liwei (Huang Xiaoming) is the youngest Special Brigade Squadron leader in the history of the province’s fire brigades. A highly proficient and courageous leader, Jiang Liwei has garnered numerous honors throughout his career. One day, responding to a fire at a hot pot restaurant, a cocky Jiang ignores mission protocols which leads to a gas explosion that kills a young firefighter. He was stripped of his ranks and demoted to Dongshan Squadron, a small and unremarkable squadron in the suburbs, while Ma Weiguo (Du Jiang), his second in command, takes the helm at the Special Brigade Squadron One. The controversial incident has left Jiang Liwei traumatized. He becomes increasingly timid and apprehensive, which led him to be ridiculed by his fellow firemen.
Genre: Action, Drama
Hannari, USA (Japan Film Days)
Synopsis: Hannari - Geisha Modern is a documentary film that seeks to capture the geisha and their culture for what they are truly meant to be. Geisha are artists and entertainers, who devote their lives to the traditional arts and a traditional way of life. Respected and admired as purveyors of traditional Japanese culture, the geisha are truly an embodiment of dedication, discipline and a relentless drive for perfection. This film brings the audience up close and personal with these magnificent artists, entertainers, or themselves living works of art. Appearances by various characters in and around the geisha community provide a glimpse into this functioning and independent community that is truly unique to Japan. For the very first time, the geisha are captured in a manner that allows the audience to see, hear and to feel for themselves the true beauty of the geisha. The film was selected by International Film Festival at United Nations.
Genre: Documentary
Tiger Hunter, USA
Synopsis: A young Indian man relocates to 1970s Chicago to become an engineer, but when his job falls through, he resorts to an elaborate charade with misfit friends in order to woo his childhood sweetheart.
Genre: Comedy
Wild League, Russia
Synopsis: Varlam decides to leave his home and life as a peasant in order to be with his beloved one. To get some money, he tries himself as a street fighter and is noticed by an Englishman and an avid gambler Parker. The latter gives him a chance to become a professional soccer player in 1909 Russia. Now, Varlam has to not just break all the boundaries but to save his true love.
Genre: Drama, History
To Whom it May Concern: Ka Shen’s Journey, USA
Synopsis: The definitive and true-life story of Nancy Kwan who as a young Eurasian girl from Hong Kong captured the hearts and minds of cinemagoers around the world in her stunning motion picture debut in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG (1960). Nancy Kwan's story is both fairytale and poignant as it takes its audience on a personal journey, a woman's journey, which is as equally compelling as it is inspiring.
Genre: Biography, Documentary, Drama
Upin & Ipin: The Lone Gibbon Kris, Malaysia
Synopsis: Filem pengembaraan baru ini mengisahkan kembar comel Upin dan Ipin bersama-sama kawan-kawan mereka Ehsan, Fizi, Mail, Jarjit, Mei Mei, dan Susanti dalam usaha mereka menyelamatkan kerajaan fantasi Inderaloka dari kekejaman Raja Bersiong. Semuanya bermula apabila Upin, Ipin dan kawan-kawan terjumpa sebilah keris misteri yang membawa mereka memasuki kerajaan tersebut. Ketika mencari jalan pulang, mereka dibebani dengan tanggungjawab untuk mengembalikan kegemilangan kerajaan itu seperti sediakala. Dengan bantuan Mat Jenin dan Belalang, Upin, Ipin, dan kawan-kawan perlu melalui pelbagai dugaan dan cabaran dalam filem pengembaraan aksi penuh magis dan lucu yang dihasilkan oleh Les’ Copaque Production Sdn. Bhd.
Genre: Animation
Queen of the Mountains, Kyrgyzstan
Synopsis: The relevant epic story of the strong-willed, courageous and independent woman before her time, Kurmanjan, who is revered to this day for her diplomacy for saving her nation from complete destruction when the Russians invaded.
Genre: Action, Biography, Drama
The Song of the Tree, Kyrgyzstan
Synopsis: XVIII century. In a small village of nomads, there is a sacred tree, which holds the secrets of generations. Women pray here. The village is full of peace and grace. The young man from a poor family (Esen) is in love with the daughter of the main bai of the village (Begimay), she reciprocates his love. But her father (Bazarbay) and his surroundings despise the young man and humiliate him at every opportunity. One day Esen, angry after an unfair loss in the game, steals meat prepared for important guests, and gives it to his dog. There is a scandal in the village, it is impossible to cook another meal, there is no firewood. It is a shame for the owners. In order to cook the meat, they cut down the sacred tree for firewood. Everything changes overnight, chaos ensues. The cattle is dead. The village is full of strife and death. The sacred tree takes revenge. It bleeds. Esen and Begimay run away from the village. The main characters will wander, be reborn, meet, make fateful actions and change their lives and the lives of their people.
Genre: Drama, History, Musical
A Wishing Tree
Synopsis: Kim, an Asian-American, is heavily steeped in old Chinese traditions by her mother. She decides to fly to Hong Kong to her multi-cultural roots where she discovers true love, friendship and what it means to be true to yourself.
Genre: Drama
FAC PRESENTS: PHILIPPINES FILM DAY
1. Kaaway - Dir. Wester Demandante
2. Halo Halo - Dir. Bernard Badion
3. Balancing Sacrifice - Dir. Rommel Andaya
4. Bubble - Dir. Alyssa Lerner
5. In This Family - Dir. Drama Del Rosario
6. Concealer - Dir. Kristine Gerolaga
7. Following Jamie - Dir. Charles Gray
8. Throuple - Dir. Chrissie De Guzman
9. Manila Is Full Of Men Named Boy - Dir. Andrew Stephen Lee
10. Fish Head - Dir. Marcos Durian
