The much talked about New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) returns, this time with double the number of Filipino films that competed in the previous year, at Walter Reade Theatre and SVA Theatre.
The 17th NYAFF opened last June 29 with the North American premiere of Tominaga Masanori's Dynamite Graffiti, an unorthodox and sprightly drama based on the life and times of Japanese porn mag king Suei Akira. Indeed, the festival lives up to its title of "not your average film festival" for featuring films that reflect contemporary society while offering extreme genre pleasures.
Now with its Savage Seventeen theme, the festival aims to show that Asia is a beacon of cinematic excitement, its films as rich in provocative artistry and as emotionally compelling as those of its Western counterpart. In the age of algorithm-dictated curation and Eurocentrism, NYAFF holds two convictions: that taste in films cannot be deduced or reduced to one’s browser history; and that the best in new cinema is rising from the East.
Seven films will battle in the second edition of the festival’s re-launched Main Competition, now renamed the Tiger Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film: Shiraishi Kazuya’s Blood of Wolves (Japan), Nam Ron’s Crossroads: One Two Jaga (Malaysia), Naito Eisuke’s Liverleaf (Japan), Dong Yue’s The Looming Storm (China), Sunny Chan’s Men on the Dragon (Hong Kong), Jeon Go-woon’s Microhabitat (South Korea), and Treb Monteras’s Respeto (Philippines). Six of the seven films are receiving their North American premieres at NYAFF, with one world premiere. Four of the competition titles are debut films, reflecting the festival’s ongoing support for new directors.
Respeto bagged major awards in the 2017 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, including Best Film, and has been well-received by critics and the general audience. Set amid the country's growing interest on rap battles with the current drug war as backdrop, Respeto starred Filipino hip hop artist Abra and directed by Treb Monteras -- both attending the NYAFF.