New York Asian Film Festival 2023

Art College 1994

North American Premiere

Loosely based on filmmaker Liu Jian’s own experiences at the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts, this consistently compelling masterwork proves that art school students are just about the same everywhere.

The Cord of Life

New York Premiere

A folktronica musician and his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother set off on a quixotic quest across the magnificent vistas of the steppes, stopping along the way to embrace the wondrous culture of their roots.

Empty Nest

North American Premiere · Q&A with Zhang Wei

A charismatic salesman rekindles an elderly woman’s belief in love and happiness in this poignant tale of love and the search for meaning in the twilight years of life.

Factory Boss

Sharp and thought-provoking, Factory Boss offers a rare glimpse into the lives of those caught in the crossfire of progress and profit.

Flaming Cloud

World Premiere · Q&A with Liu Siyi

Director Liu Siyi’s stunning feature debut, a live-action spin on the classic fairy tale paradigm, is an exquisite homage to the Disney movies and Chinese folklore that her generation grew up on.

Redemption with Life

World Premiere

In the latest feature from NYAFF’s Filmmaker in Focus, Zhang Wei, a majestic motorcycle club snakes its way along a glorious Tibetan highway before a nested series of flashbacks reveals the plight that brought them on their profound journey.

The Rib (Director’s Cut)

Q&A with Zhang Wei

This breakthrough film, about a 32-year-old man trying to undergo reassignment surgery, illustrates the intense stigma and obstacles that the LGBT community must face in China, offering an inside look at both the marginalized and those who condemn them.

A Woman

North American Premiere

A factory worker in Mao’s China tows the party line on the surface, but in her personal life she extolls the virtues of resilience and resistance against institutionalized sexism and oppression. Wang Chao’s adaptation of Zhang Xiuzhen’s novel is told in sweeping episodes that eloquently describe the hidden hardships of the era.

A Light Never Goes Out

US Premiere · Q&A with Anastasia Tsang

A recent widow teams up with the young apprentice of her husband, one of Hong Kong’s premier neon sign artisans, to complete his magnum opus in this nostalgic paean to Hong Kong’s irrepressibly bright and vibrant spirit.

Back Home

World Premiere · Q&A with Nate Ki, Bai Ling, and Anson Kong

In this hallucinogenic horror opus, a young man who can see ghosts returns to his childhood home and is trapped in a waking nightmare.

Everyphone Everywhere

North American Premiere

Director Amos Why (Far, Far Away, NYAFF 2022) brings his wry playfulness with narrative structure and media formalism to this pointed satire of postmodern communication and its resultant technological fallout.

In Broad Daylight

North American Premiere · Q&A with Lawrence Kan

Based on real events, this hard-hitting exposé of systematic failure and institutionalized corruption is a clarion call for compassion and respect without prejudice.

Mad Fate

North American Premiere

Set in a surreal city of hookers, mystics, and psychopaths, Mad Fate is a crazed, morally complex addition to classic Cantonese mean-streets noir.

Nomad (Director’s Cut)

East Coast Premiere · New 4K Restoration

Four attractive souls, equal parts rich and working class, form a tragic romantic bond of ennui, anomie, absurdity, love, and violence in (Wong Kar Wai mentor) Patrick Tam’s genre-defying Hong Kong New Wave watershed.

The Sunny Side of the Street

New York Premiere

After a fit of road rage gone south, Yat, a cantankerous cabbie with a checkered past, finds himself embroiled in the fate of a young Pakistani asylum-seeker. These two lost souls find they have more in common than they thought as they form a strong bond on a path of redemption paved with corruption and despair.

Vital Signs

North American Premiere · Q&A with Cheuk Wan-chi & Louis Koo

This buddy mentor-mentee story is imbued with pathos set against the backdrop of harrowing thrill-a-minute emergency rescue operations. Louis Koo shines as the stoic yet soft-hearted ambulanceman supreme, who must face his own painful past while literally breaking his back to provide a good future for his charmingly precocious young daughter.

The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell

North American Premiere

Genre maestro Herman Yau follows his highly successful showstopper The White Storm 2: Drug Lords (NYAFF 2019) with this even more hyperbolic and gritty entry in the gonzo super-cops vs. crazy crooks series.

#Manhole

East Coast Premiere

A young executive is stuck in a desolate manhole amidst a driving downpour armed only with a trusty cell phone in this fantastical edge-of-your-seat thriller.

December

North American Premiere · Q&A with Anshul Chauhan & Shogen

This riveting courtroom drama, written and directed by non-Japanese, wrestles with the controversial imprisonment of juvenile offenders and the gray areas of Japan’s criminal justice system, where the conviction rate is 99%.

Egoist

New York Premiere · Q&A with Daishi Matsunaga and Ryohei Suzuki

A poignant story of love, loss, self-sacrifice, and discovery, Daishi Matsunaga’s heralded new film is inspired by the seminal semi-autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama.

Home Sweet Home

North American Premiere · Q&A with Takumi Saitoh

A young family moves into a new house but the claustrophobic basement that controls the always-perfect temperature will soon ominously reflect all of their collective nightmares….

A Hundred Flowers

New York Premiere

Genki Kawamura, a best-selling author (If Cats Disappeared From the World) and star producer (on anime mega-hits like Belle, Weathering With You, and Your Name) makes a poetic and visually stunning feature debut, adapted from his own novel.

In Her Room

North American Premiere · Q&A with Chihiro Ito & Satoru Iguchi

There are mysteries nested inside mysteries in this otherworldly erotic film, the directorial debut of veteran screenwriter Chihiro Ito (Crying Out Love in the Center of the World, Spring Snow), adapted from her own novel.

Mayhem Girls

International Premiere

A small gaggle of previously unassociated high school girls, centered around the humbly charismatic Mizuho, form a tight-knit clique when their typically adolescent hormonal changes are suddenly manifested by… supernatural powers!

Motherhood

US Premiere

The details behind two generations of fraught mother-daughter relationships unfold following a news item about a 17-year-old girl’s attempted suicide. This intense psychodrama of emotional blackmail and betrayal has stirring twists and turns aplenty.

Mountain Woman

North American Premiere · Q&A with Takeshi Fukunaga

A rural woman whose village is in its second year of a devastating famine quest for survival gradually transforms into a journey to self-actualization in this haunting 18th-century-set tale of resilience in the face of harsh discrimination.

Okiku and the World

North American Premiere · Q&A with Junji Sakamoto

This audacious, aesthetically brilliant new Edo-era period drama about two “manure men” who collect waste from outhouses achieves a perfect blend of potty humor, cutting social commentary, and budding romance.

Mountain Onion

North American Premiere · Q&A with Eldar Shibanov

Director Eldar Shibanov looks to the eyes of children for a wryly imaginative satire of adult foibles, filling his deceptively quotidian Kazakh boondocks with lively oddballs as colorful as their quirky costumes and other random devices.

Abang Adik

North American Premiere · Q&A with Jin Ong

The bond of two undocumented orphans is tested when one’s pent-up aggression leads to an unspeakable act. This remarkable award-winning debut offers a rare glimpse into Malaysian street life.

I Love You, Beksman

North American Premiere

When fashionably androgynous salon worker Dalia falls for a gorgeous beauty pageant contestant the truth finally comes out: He’s a straight guy with a queer eye! This brilliant riff on Romeo and Juliet wears campy corniness on its self-aware pop-art sleeve.

12 Weeks

International Premiere · Q&A with Anna Isabelle Matutina

The refreshingly multidimensional characters and complex interpersonal relationships in director Anna Isabelle Matutina’s bold debut cover all the points and counterpoints of the sensitive issue of abortion.

Where Is the Lie?

New York Premiere · Q&A with Quark Henares, EJ Jallorina & Royce Cabrera

This vibrantly Gen Z-skewing film with a humorous and hard-hitting script based on a real-life incident in the Philippines focuses on the charming, lovelorn target of a vile cyberbully (a star-making performance by luminous trans woman EJ Jallorina).

Geylang

North American Premiere · Q&A with Boi Kwong & Jason Ho

A beautiful young prostitute’s sudden disappearance leads her foul-mouthed pimp, ragamuffin boyfriend, and a local lawyer on a gore-filled wild goose chase in this wild pop-art genre joyride.

Bear Man

North American Premiere

Park Sung-woong is dazzling in two roles — as an embarrassingly goofy bear cub/man-child and a steely, well-dressed hit man — in this boisterous comedy.

Dream

Centerpiece Film · International Premiere · Q&A with Lee Byeong-heon

A virtuoso soccer player (Park Seo-jun) and cynical producer (K-pop megastar IU) form a national football team made up of homeless individuals in acclaimed director Lee Byeong-heon’s highly anticipated blockbuster.

Greenhouse

North American Premiere

This striking feature debut is a gripping slow-burn drama-cum-thriller about a caretaker for a disabled elderly couple coping with her own psychological troubles.

Hail to Hell

North American Premiere

In this tar-black comedy, Na-mi and Sun-woo’s suicide pact is abruptly foiled when they find out that the bully who led them to this sorry fate is living happily ever after, far from their sleepy town.

The Host

This screening takes place on July 21 at 9pm in Damrosch Park

A young girl's family does everything in its power to rescue her from the clutches of a giant amphibious mutant—rendered as alternately chaotic, lethal, and clumsy—that has emerged from the Han River in Bong’s masterful monster movie. This film screens as part of Lincoln Center's Korean Arts Week.

Killing Romance

Opening Night Film · North American Premiere · Q&A on July 14 with Lee Won-suk & Lee Sun-kyun · Q&A on July 30 with Lee Won-suk, Gong Myoung, Lee Hanee & Lee Sun-kyun

A comic fantasia about a former superstar actress trapped in a toxic marriage with an egomaniacal tycoon, Killing Romance rounds up unforgettable performances that power up an electroshock of a tale, dancing between a love story, a musical, a murder plot, and a million things in between.

Phantom

North American Premiere · Q&A with Lee Hanee

One of South Korea’s biggest hits of 2023, this brilliantly lensed, action-packed spy drama is set in 1933 Korea, during Japanese colonial rule, and features a cast of Korean stars speaking almost entirely in Japanese.

Rebound

New York Premiere · Intro & Q&A with director Chang Hang-jun, Kim Taek, Jeong Jin-woon & Billy Acumen

Transcending the sports genre and eschewing the pitfalls of easy sentiment and melodrama, Chang Hang-jun’s Rebound elevates its premise with a singularly rousing screenplay, co-written by Kwon Sung-hui (The Spy Gone North, As One) and Kim Eun-hee (Netflix’s Kingdom).

A Tour Guide

North American Premiere · Q&A with Kwak Eun-mi

Han-young, a North Korean defector, gets a license to guide Chinese tourists thanks to the language skills she acquired as a refugee in China. She works diligently but faces many challenges, from coworker rivalry to assimilation, all while desperately searching for her missing brother.

The Abandoned

North American Premiere · Q&A with Tseng Ying-ting

A down-on-her-luck police detective uncovers the work of a vicious serial killer targeting illegal migrant workers in this transcendently insightful examination of the human psyche.

Bad Education

North American Premiere

Taking over from his mentor Giddens Ko, Kai Ko delivers a kinetic (and often laugh-out-loud-against-our-better-judgment) delineation of good and evil with turbulent high stakes.

Eye of the Storm

International Premiere

Eye of the Storm is a gripping and poignant hospital thriller that explores the power of empathy and human resilience in the face of despair.

Gaga

East Coast Premiere · Q&A with Laha Mebow

Imbued with divinely tragicomic undertones, Gaga’s deceptively simple story allows the audience to bask in the glory of the Atayal tribe's unique culture and effervescent personalities.

Marry My Dead Body

East Coast Premiere

A bit of folk magic lands a wannabe supercop betrothed to the ghost of a gay man who forces him to make a much needed attitude adjustment while also helping him solve a major drug case. This is full-throttle fun and high-voltage action all the way—and a much-needed sendup of homophobia.

Miss Shampoo

North American Premiere

Star auteur Giddens Ko adapts one of his own wild short stories into a raunchy gangster-romcom mash-up about a fledgling hair dresser who inadvertently saves the life of a gang boss, who falls for her.

Faces of Anne

North American Premiere · Q&A with Rasiguet Sookkarn

Anne wakes up on a strange island oppressed by scary caretakers and given a mission of survival against blood-crazed pagan demons in this surreal odyssey about all that it means to be a woman in the modern world.

Kitty the Killer

International Premiere · Q&A with Lee Thongkham & Vithaya Pansringarm

Built on comic book logic with its tongue firmly in cheek, this anarchic action-comedy is a rousing pastiche of Asian genre film tropes and references exuberantly topped off with a riotous Thai sense of humor for a rollicking good time.

You & Me & Me

North American Premiere · Q&A with Weawwan Hongvivatana and Wanweaw Hongvivatana

This charmingly insightful directorial debut by real-life twins Weawwan and Wanweaw Hongvivatana puts a buoyantly ironic spin on summer romance.

Glorious Ashes

North American Premiere

Profound and lyrical, the first film in over a decade from cinematic poet Bui Thac Chuyen (Adrift) spins a mesmerizing tale of life, love, loneliness, and pyromania in yesteryear’s Mekong Delta.

A-Town Boyz

World Premiere · Q&A with Eunice Lau

This edgy documentary focusing on three young men in Atlanta’s vibrant hip-hop scene is an illuminating time capsule of the immigrant struggle juxtaposed with cultural trends and socio-economic needs.

The Effects of Lying

North American Premiere · Q&A with Aizzah Fatima, Isher Sahota & Jon Tarcy

With a smashing cast, the majority of whom just happen to be British Asian, The Effects of Lying cleverly milks the universal truisms of family dysfunction for both philosophical reflection and savage laughs galore.

Narrative Shorts Showcase – Animation

A showcase of animated shorts from South Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, and the United States.

Narrative Shorts Showcase – Live Action

A showcase of live-action shorts from China, South Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States.

The Monkey King

Intro with Peilin Chou

Inspired by the epic Ming Dynasty classic, Journey to the West, the film takes as its inspiration quite possibly the most popular Chinese tale of all time.

NYAFF Talk: Asian Diaspora Filmmaker Forum

Free for NYAFF ticket and pass holders

Discover the intricate dynamics of being Asian and representing Asians in America in our upcoming talk, which delves into Asian portrayals in cinema and their real-life implications.

NYAFF Talk: The Southeast Asian Filmmaking Space

Free for NYAFF ticket and pass holders

Seize this rare opportunity to hear new and upcoming filmmakers share their own  tales of artistic triumph and folly from the production trenches about why and how they have executed such arresting visions.

NYAFF Opening Night Market

Killing Romance + Night Market ticket required

NYAFF is thrilled to celebrate the opening of the 22nd edition with the traditional Night Market soiree featuring food, music, and more!

Matsuri Monday

Free for NYAFF pass and ticket holders

Join us for a night celebrating Japanese culture and food from 6pm-11pm in the Furman Gallery.