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The 1^st International Film Festival and Awards · Macao announces festival strands, advisory team and programming team

The 1^st International Film Festival and Awards•Macao (IFFAM) today announces that submissions are now being accepted for the inaugural festival, which will take place in Macao from 8 to 13 December, 2016.

The festival will see a number of gala and red carpet screenings, with a competition strand and special focus sections alongside an industry screening programme, masterclasses, education initiatives and a co-production event. There will be a strong but not exclusive focus on genre titles.

The festival’s screening programme will encompass the following strands:

·         Competition – 10 to 12 new international films to be judged by a jury of five film professionals

·         Out of Competition / Gala – a selection of 6 of the most important works from the latter half of the year

·         Hidden Dragons – 6 films representing the latest trends in contemporary Asian genre cinema

·         Best of Fest Panorama – 5 or 6 award-winning feature films from major international festivals

·         Crossfire – 12 non-East Asian, non-US genre films selected by a dozen major East Asian film directors

Feature films can be submitted through the IFFAM website www.iffamacao.com. The deadline for open submissions is 30 September, 2016.  Submissions criteria are detailed below and can be found on the website.

IFFAM Festival Director Marco Mueller also announces his full team of international advisors and programme consultants.

The IFFAM’s full line-up of international advisors is as follows:

·         Huang Jianxin – Director/producer (China)

·         Oh Jung-wan – Producer, Bom Film Productions (South Korea)

·         Olivier Père - Managing Director, Arte France Cinema (France)

·         James Schamus – Producer/director/screenwriter, Symbolic Exchange (USA)

·         Nansun Shi – Producer, Film Workshop (Hong Kong)

·         Luís Urbano – Producer, O Som e a Furia and festival director, Vila do Conde International Short Film Festival (Portugal)

·         Michael J. Werner – Chairman, Fortissimo Films (Hong Kong)

The IFFAM’s head of festival management, Lorna Tee, most recently worked with Mueller at the Fuzhou Silk Road Film Festival where she was the consultant for Southeast Asian Cinema.  She also acts as the IFFAM programming consultant for South Korea and South East Asia.  A film producer and international festival consultant, she is currently the festival director at Cinemasia in the Netherlands and developing international co-productions between Asia and Europe.  

Most of the members of the programming team have previously collaborated with Mueller from his time as head of the Venice and Rome film festivals, following him in his more recent roles as general advisor at the Beijing International Film Festival and head of programming at the Fuzhou Silk Road Film Festival.

The festival’s international programming team and the areas they cover are:

·         Deepti D’Cunha – India

·         Shan Dongbing – Mainland China

·         Marie-Pierre Duhamel – Western Europe

·         Sandra Hebron – United States and United Kingdom

·         Diego Lerer – Latin America

·         Tomita Mikiko – Japan

·         Alëna Shumakova – Russia, Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe

In the announcement of this team, IFFAM Director Marco Mueller comments, “I am especially happy to be reunited one more time with the team who have contributed so much to the invention of a diverse and compelling program for the Venice and Rome festivals, and who have helped bringing so many world and international premieres to Beijing and Fuzhou.”

IFFAM is organised by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) and Macau Film & Television Productions and Culture Association (MFTPA), co-organised with Cultural Affairs Bureau (Macao), Civil & Municipal Affairs Bureau (Macao), supported by Macao Foundation, with major sponsorships from the Galaxy Entertainment Group, Wynn Macau Limited, MGM, and THE 13.