It’s only been three weeks since the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival ended, but we’ve finally uploaded all our remaining guest Q&As and other goodies to the Subway Cinema channel on YouTube, which can be accessed here. You can even become a subscriber, which will give you automatic notification on any future updates.

New additions include…

- lovely and talented Korean actress Kong Hyo-jin introducing her film CRUSH AND BLUSH

- Korean superstar stud So Ji-sub introducing the second show of his film ROUGH CUT, to the delighted squeals of his fans in the audience

- the 2009 Rising Star Asia Awards ceremony, with Kong and So

- Sion Sono’s Q&A following the World Premiere of his new film BE SURE TO SHARE, with actor Eiji Okuda

- NYAFF’s 2009 jury awards

- the notorious “bad boy” Q&A by Sion Sono following the 7/7 Japan Cuts show of LOVE EXPOSURE

- Yoshihiro Nishimura and a faux Takanori Tsujimoto introducing HARD REVENGE, MILLY

- and finally, the hilariously inappropriate, and now legendary, TOKYO GORE NIGHT fundoshi show

Needless to say, much of this isn’t safe for work. Enjoy!

Comments (0) Jul 29 2009

Every year, the audience at the New York Asian Film Festival votes on its favorite films by filling out a ballot after every screening. We’ve just totaled the votes and the winner of the NYAFF 2009 Audience Award is:

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THE MAGIC HOUR

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Runner-up:

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IP MAN

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These five films all tied for third place with roughly the same number of votes:

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VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL

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ROUGH CUT

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LOVE EXPOSURE

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FISH STORY

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And a very special mention for HOUSE, which garnered a HUGE number of votes for a 30 year old film.

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And that’s all she wrote for 2009. A big “thank you” to all the distributors and sponsors who helped make this happen, but an even bigger, even more enormous, industrial-sized THANK YOU to every single audience member who bought a ticket. You guys are the reason we do this festival and every ticket you bought was a way of saying “Yes! We want more Asian movies in New York City!” And you were heard, because it looks like we’ll be back next year. Your generosity, your support, your unbridled enthusiasm and your hunger for fun are what keep this festival alive and what makes it special. You’re not “just” the audience: you’re the reason this festival exists. We couldn’t do it without you. And we wouldn’t want to anyways.

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Comments (4) Jul 08 2009

With a sigh of sadness and relief, the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival ends today, with our final screening, the World Premiere of Sion Sono’s BE SURE TO SHARE, starring actor Eiji Okuda. Sono and Okuda are here in NY with us, and will provide us with what’s sure to be a titillating post-screening Q&A session. Check our YouTube channel for the video of that some time later this week.

Prior to the screening, our 2009 jury announced their picks for the official competition awards.

Best Actor Award goes to Ge You for IF YOU ARE THE ONE

Best Actress Award goes to Tae Kimura for ALL AROUND US

Best Ensemble Performance Award goes to the cast of ALL AROUND US

Best Debut Feature Award goes to director Yang Ik-June for BREATHLESS

Best Visual Achievement goes to THE CLONE RETURNS HOME

Special Award for Best Pop Culture Rush goes to FISH STORY

Special Award for Audacity goes to CRUSH AND BLUSH

And the 2009 Grand Jury Prize goes to Sion Sono’s LOVE EXPOSURE!

Congratulations to all the winners. Watch this space this week for the announcement of the winner of the Audience Award prize! And thanks to all our sponsors, volunteers, partners and most of all, our audience, for allowing us to bring you the kinds of movies that we love to watch, in the hope that some of you might enjoy them as well.

Comments (5) Jul 05 2009

It might feel like it’s all winding down here at the New York Asian Film Festival, but we’ve got a full holiday weekend in store for New Yorkers looking for some Asian cinema entertainment.

Two more Japanese guests will join us this weekend, both of them familiar figures on the Asian cinema landscape.

Director Sion Sono comes to town for not one, but two premieres. The first is Friday night’s sold-out show of his four-hour epic about love, sex, panty photography, cults and murder, LOVE EXPOSURE. A few tickets remain for the Japan Cuts screening on July 7th, which Sono will also attend, so grab them while you can!

For filmgoers who might not be as adventurous in their screening choices—or with not enough time to devote to a four-hour film—we’ve got Sono’s newest film, BE SURE TO SHARE, making its World Premiere on Sunday night at 8:15 pm, with both Sono and lead actor Eiji Okuda in attendance. Okuda has been in everything from low-budget films to big epics to TV dramas, and he’s a director himself, with four award-winning and critically-acclaimed films under his belt. Join us Sunday night for our closing ceremony, jury awards and what’s sure to be a lively Q&A with both men.

And don’t forget that we’ve still got a half-day of screenings at the IFC Center, including newly-added midnight shows of two popular titles from earlier in the fest: the 1977 psychedelic horror trip-out HOUSE and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s critically-acclaimed high school monster romp VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL! Tickets available NOW!

Comments (1) Jul 02 2009

Love Exposure

We’ve reached the point in this year’s New York Asian Film Festival where everybody is exhausted, all of us want it to end, but we need to suck it up and make it thru the final weekend. And what a final weekend it is, as we move all our crap from the IFC Center up to Japan Society, and present a weekend packed full of Japanese film goodness, co-presented by JS’s Japan Cuts festival.

There’s the award-winning, critically-acclaimed look at a marriage through a microscope, ALL AROUND US; the tear-jerking saga of a death row guard forced to take on a despicable job in order to provide his new wife with a honeymoon, VACATION; the hilarious screwball comedy by hitmaker Koki Mitani, THE MAGIC HOUR; Sion Sono’s four-hour long epic of love, death, cults, religion, sex, porn, under-skirt photography and everything in-between, LOVE EXPOSURE (already sold out but showing again on 7/7); and the World Premiere of Sono’s latest, BE SURE TO SHARE, the latter two films with legendary bad boy director Sono in attendance for a post-film Q&A. Plus legendary leading man Eiji Okuda for BE SURE TO SHARE. Plus repeat performances of PRIDE, 20TH CENTURY BOYS 1 and 2, and the audience favorite FISH STORY.

Get your tickets online or save the $2.50 ticketing fee by walking over to 47th and First and picking up tickets at the box office.

And here, for your viewing pleasure, are some more links to our ongoing series of YouTube presentations of post-film Q&As and pre-film intros! Subscribe to our channel here.

Yoshihiro Nishimura & Noboru Iguchi introduce Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 film HOUSE, after a sixteen hour plane ride:

HOUSE [part 2]

Nishimura, Iguchi and crew provide an entertaining Q&A for VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL, following the film’s 6/26 World Premiere:

VAMPIRE GIRL [part 2] [part 3]

Join us for our final four days!

Comments (0) Jul 02 2009