ASIAN
The 2021 Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) today unveiled its Competition, Centerpiece, and Special Screenings slate
The three Festival programs will together showcase fiction and documentary features from at least 14 nations, highlighting this year’s theme of unity. The schedule will include at least seven Academy Award for Best International Feature Film submissions and tributes to celebrated Chinese-American actresses Lisa Lu and Nancy Kwan and Vietnamese-American actress Kieu Chinh. The closing night film will be South Korea’s official submission to the 2022 Academy Awards®, Escape from Mogadishu. The AWFF, now in its seventh year, will take place November 1 – 11, 2021 at the Landmark Theater, West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles.
“AWFF’s Competition, Centerpiece, and Special Screening series will spotlight the stories, passions, and convictions of a wide swath of accomplished and emerging Asian, Middle Eastern, and Asian-American filmmakers, adding a window to Africa,” said Georges N. Chamchoun, AWFF executive director. “They shared the determination to create films for your reflection and enjoyment despite the challenges of the past two years and to pay tribute to the hope of unity.”
The Competition lineup includes the U.S. premiere of Kyrgyzstan’s Shambala, the country’s official Oscar submission. The Centerpiece movie is the documentary Qazaq: History of the Golden Man, directed by Igor Lopatonok and featuring Oliver Stone, also a producer who will attend the screening.
Among the Special Screenings is the world premiere of director Michael Pascal’s documentary feature We Are Not Alone, followed by a live Q&A with spiritual leader Deepak Chopra. Additional U.S. premieres in the festival include Lebanon’s Yusif and Kyrgyzstan’s The Road to Eden.
Serving on the 2021 AWFF jury are: Sydney Levine, film consultant (jury President); Loni Anderson, actress, author, activist; Andrzej Bartkowiak, cinematographer; Lianne Hu, film producer, writer, actor, businessperson; Cheng Sim-Lim, film curator; Peter Luo, film producer, businessperson; Arati Misro, film producer, and Ivana Nguyen, film producer, actress.
Additional programming will be announced in the coming week.
The Asian World Film Festival (AWFF), founded by Kyrgyz public figure Sadyk Sher-Niyaz, brings the best of a broad selection of Asian world cinema to Los Angeles to draw greater recognition to the region’s wealth of filmmakers and to strengthen ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries. Uniting through cross-cultural collaboration, the Festival champions films from more than 50 countries across Asia, from Turkey to Japan and from Russia to India and the Middle East. All participating films are provided with the unique opportunity to be guided through the challenging awards season. They’re also showcased to Motion Picture Academy members, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the entertainment Guilds for enhanced exposure, media attention, and awards consideration. AWFF is a non-profit organization under Aitysh, USA.
