Udine Far East Film Fest features pink film retrospective programmed by Rolan Domenig

by Chris MaGee

We here at the Pow-Wow, myself and Marc Saint-Cyr specifically, have been gearing ourselves up for next week's 11th annual Nippon Connection Japanese Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. One thing is, though, that Nippon Connection isn't the only dose of Asian film that Continental Europe will be seeing next week. Southeast of Frankfurt Asian film fans will be gathering for the 13th annual Udine Far East Film Festival.

Of very special interest to Japanese cinephiles will be Pink Wink: A Tribute to Asakura Daisuke, a program of fourteen pink films created under the auspices of producer Daisuke Asakura. These include Kan Mukai's "Blue Film Woman" (above), Shinji Imaoka's "Lunchbox" and Rei Sakamoto's "Yariman". Rei Sakamoto will be joining Pink Wink curator Roland Domenig, Assistant Professor from the University of Vienna, in Udine to chat with the audience during the screenings.

Along with Pink Wink this year's Udine Far East Film Festival will feature a tribute to director Masaharu Segawa, plus a great selection of films from Japan including Yoichi Higashi's "Wandering Home", Sang-il Lee's "Villain", Ryuichi Hiroki's "The Lightning Tree", Tetsuya Nakashima's "Confessions" and Shinji Imaoka's "Underwater Love", amongst many others.

The 13th annual Udine Far East Film Festival will be taking place from April 29th to May 7th. To browse the full line-up and check out ticket details head to the fest's official website here. Meanwhile check out the trailer for this year's Udine fest below.