Film festival focuses on ‘delicious’ films
NOW on its 7th year, the Crosscut Asia film festival returns with a special two-part online version featuring “delicious” films from Asia, and “encore screenings” of films from its past editions.
Crosscut Asia was launched in 2014 as a section of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF). The section’s aim was to showcase and promote the diverse Asian films with a focus on specific Asian countries/regions, directors, or themes.
This year, the Japan Foundation Asia Center and TIFF are jointly presenting the Crosscut Asia Delicious! Online Film Festival. It will have two programs: the Crosscut Asia special edition featuring “delicious” films from Asia, and Encore! Crosscut Asia. (Several of the films cannot be accessed in the Philippines.)
The Crosscut Asia Delicious! Online Film Festival will run from Jan. 21 to Feb. 3, and can be accessed for free at the festival’s website: https://crosscutonline.jfac.jp/english/.
Two Filipino films are among the seven participating films in the “delicious” section. These are Paul Sta. Ana’s Balut Country (2015) introduces balut, the popular Filipino treat which is a boiled fertilized duck egg; and Jay Abello’s romantic comedy Namets! (Yummy!) (2008), which showcases the cuisine of the Philippine island of Negros. Balut will not be accessible in the Philippines but it will be screened outside the country. Meanwhile, Namets! will be having its Japan premiere in this section.
The five other films from Southeast Asia and Japan in this section are:
- Aruna & Her Palate (2018), an Indonesian food-themed road movie by Edwin, the director who won the Golden Leopard at the 2021 Locarno International Film Festival;
- Kampai! Sake Sisters (2019), directed by Konishi Mirai, which looks into the sake industry in Japan. The film will not be available in the Philippines, but it will be shown outside the country;
- My Love is Soup (2020), directed by Kriangkrai Monwichit, a comedy with culinary images from Thailand’s deep south;
- A River Changes Course (2013), directed by Kalyanee Mam, which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival; and,
- Wanton Mee (2015), made by Singaporean director Eric Khoo, whose films are screened regularly at international film festivals.
Two more Filipino films are part of the Encore! program. The films in this program were chosen from those which attracted great acclaim during their screenings in past editions of Crosscut Asia at TIFF.
The two award-winning Filipino films are: Lawrence Fajardo’s Imbisibol (2015) which tells the story of four Filipino migrant workers in Japan, and Brillante Ma. Mendoza’s Taklub (2015), which provides a cinematic take on the horrendous aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan.
Four other films from Southeast Asia are included in this program:
- Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock & Roll (2014), directed by John Pirozzi, which examines and unravels Cambodia’s recent tragic past;
- Pete Teo Special (2008-2013), directed by Ho Yuhang, Yasmin Ahmad and others, which consists of 15 short films made by Malaysian filmmakers;
- Tang Wong (2013), directed Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, a comedic Thai drama that centers around four high school boys; and,
- Three Sassy Sisters (2016), an Indonesian musical film.
Meanwhile, the Japan Foundation, Manila will also screen another film in a side event in time for the festival: Suzuki Daisuke: Diary of an Ambassador’s Chef. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Martika Ramirez Escobar, the documentary tells the story of food and cultural diplomacy through a day in the life of chef Suzuki Daisuke, who works at the Japanese Ambassador’s residence. On his fifth year of being based in Manila, he has concocted and devised innovative and surprising dishes fusing the best of Filipino and Japanese cuisine.
The film showing will be hosted by chef Reggie Aspiras, and will feature an interview with Japanese Ambassador Koshikawa Kazuhiko. Suzuki Daisuke: Diary of an Ambassador’s Chef will stream online on Jan. 21 concurrently with Crosscut Asia on the Japan Foundation, Manila’s YouTube Channel and Facebook page.
