CELEBRATE the coming Lunar New Year by watching one of the six featured films at the 11th Spring Film Festival.

There are also other related activities such as a Chinese painting exhibit, a Chinese music concert, and Chinese pastel painting workshop.

The festival — scheduled from Jan. 25-29 at Cinema 4 of the Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong City — was organized by Ateneo de Manila University’s Ricardo Leong Center for Chinese Studies. The six films (fewer than last year’s 10) were “chosen for Filipinos’ disposition towards [genres such as] rom-com, family and comedy,” said the center’s director, Sidney Christopher T. Bata, during a press preview on Jan. 18 at the Shangri-La Cineplex, Mandaluyong City.

Headlining the list of films is Wolf Totem (2015) directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Lu Jiamin. The film is about a young Beijing student who left his home to work in Inner Mongolia during China’s Cultural Revolution. The film tells of his life among the nomadic herdsmen and how he adopts wolf cub in an attempt to save it. The film was chosen as China’s foreign-language entry for the Academy Awards in 2015.

A Complicated Story (2013), directed by Kiwi Chow, tells the story of a Hong Kong university student in dire need of money who decides to take up an offer to become a surrogate mother for an elite couple. After the contract gets terminated abruptly, she refuses to give up the child and goes into hiding, until the child’s biological father finds her.

Book of Love (2016), also called Finding Mr. Right 2 as it is director/writer Xie Xiaolu’s follow-up to the 2013 film Finding Mr. Right, follows a casino hostess from Macau and a realtor based in Los Angeles who cross paths and form a connection after stumbling upon the same book.

Everybody’s Fine (2016), directed by Zhang Meng, is the second remake of the 1990 Italian drama film of the same name. It tells the story of a widower who anticipated the annual summer visit of his four children, all of whom suddenly cancel — an action which prompts him to leave his house and visit them instead.

Horseplay (2014), directed by Lee Chi-ngai, is an action comedy where an entertainment journalist tracks down a notorious art thief called the Nine-Tailed Fox who then asks her for help in recovering a Tang Dynasty pottery horse while, at the same time, a detective is asking the journalist’s help in capturing the art thief.

Finally, there is Red Amnesia (2014) by Wang Xiaoshuai, a thriller about an elderly woman who insists on taking care of her two sons and her mother. Her routines center on the care of her family until it’s all thrown into disarray after she receives mysterious anonymous calls.

All of the films will be shown in DCP (Digital Cinema Package), according to Mr. Bata, in response to patrons “telling us to better our [film] quality.”

Aside from the six films which will be screened at the Shang Cineplex Cinema 4 of the Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong City, a Chinese painting exhibit at the mall’s grand atrium will run from Jan. 25-31 while a Chinese music concert is scheduled on Jan. 28 at 3 p.m. A Pastel Painting Workshop with Fidel Sarmiento, president of the Art Association of the Philippines, is slated on Jan. 29 at 1 p.m. Finally, a Chinese Dragon and Lion Dance performance is set on Feb. 5 at 2 p.m.

Admission to the film festival and other activities are free. For inquiries, call 370-2597 or 98 or visit facebook.com/shanrilaplazaofficial. — Zsarlene B. Chua

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THRILLERS, comedies, and family films make up this year’s 11th Spring Festival: (clockwise from top) Horseplay, Everybody’s Fine, Red Amnesia, Wolf Totem, Book of Love, A Complicated Story.

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