The Hong Kong International Film Festival Federation (HKIFF) has announced the early stages of 17 projects in development selected for the 24th Hong Kong-Asia Film Finance Forum (HAF) to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center from March 17 to 19.
The projects, which are currently in the scriptwriting and financing stages, will be announced as part of the HKIFF Industrial Project Market, which will be held concurrently with the 30th Hong Kong International Film & Television Market. Additional selections focusing on genre, animation, and ongoing projects will be announced in the coming weeks.
HKIFFS attracted 414 entries from 38 countries and regions for this year’s forum, with 82% of entries coming from Asia. The submitting countries are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, mainland China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The lineup features up-and-coming talent alongside some of the biggest names in the industry who serve as producers. The film stars new directors such as Sasha Cheuk, Story Chen Zhenying, and Emma Kawada, and is produced by veteran filmmakers Stanley Kwan, Anthony Chen, and Yasushi Shiina.
Among other Hong Kong-flavored projects, Chuk and Kwan will reunite for 131, following their collaboration on “Fly Me to the Moon,” which was screened at the 2023 Tokyo International Film Festival. The drama follows two masseuses and a construction worker as they navigate their futures between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Director Vincci Chuc, who closed HKIFF 2023 with “Vital Signs,” has teamed up with Japanese producer Shunsuke Koga to create “38.83,” an intergenerational comedy that tracks the unexpected bond between a 38-year-old woman and her 83-year-old grandmother during an inevitable journey. Koga produced “Small, Slow but Steady,” which was performed in Berlin in 2022.
TV series writer-turned-director Chong Waiyu will collaborate with Golden Horse Award-winning producer Peter Yam on the comedy-drama “Mamma Mia Let Me Go!”. The project centers on a young woman who organizes a meeting between her mother and her young lover to escape her restrictive home environment.
Zhang Hingkai will produce Guo Yutian’s “Forget She’s a Girlfriend.” This story is about a writer who mistakes a stalker for his deceased brother, and explores his conflicted identity while confronting his long-buried past involving a murder case.
Fantasy and absurdist works include Sanju Surendran’s Malayalam fable The Human Fisherman, created by Pramod Sankar, Rajeev Ravi and Kiran Kesab. The project depicts the transcendental transformation of an Indian vegetarian banker, which begins with an inexplicable obsession with fish. Director Surendran’s “On a Winter Night” will be screened in Busan in 2025.
Xu Jianming, whose short “Crow” won the Best Live-Action Short Film Award at Shanghai 2025, will present “Have a Good Trip” produced by Bi Guangming. The project weaves seven bizarre stories through eerie small-town characters, including a doctor who has been trapped in his clinic for decades and a man who claims he has ants living in his ears.
Set in Xinjiang, Emejan Mehmet’s Flower Seller, produced by Wang Hongwei and Derek Cheung, explores the inner life of a depressed man whose whimsical encounter with a flower seller reignites his will to live.
Projects with themes of love and bereavement include A Drop in the Sea, produced by Kildin Grid and Zhang Huang for Paris-based director Hsiao Beir. Chan produced “Living the Land,” which won the Silver Bear at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. The story is about an entrepreneurial Chinese woman who travels to Algeria for her Muslim brother’s funeral and discovers a previously unknown side of his life.
Produced by Crisma Fajardo, Liza Diño and Ais Seguera’s feature debut, “Funeral Flowers,” unfolds entirely during the wake of a political leader, in which his daughter confronts her estranged brother and mistress in public spectacle.
Toei’s Naoya Takahashi and Eiko Mizuno Gray will produce “Life is Yours,” directed by Emma Kawawada. This work is a revenge story about an elderly janitor who comes up with a plan to recover stolen land at a ski resort in Niseko. Kawawada’s “My Small Land” was performed at the 2022 Berlinale.
Story Chen Jianyin, whose short film The Water Murmurs won the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, will direct My Phantom, produced by Li Xiaoyuan. The project takes the characters on a dreamlike journey through Kyoto as a Chinese author encounters a man who resembles her late fiancée, who went missing on their wedding day.
TIFFCOM chief Yasushi Shiina, along with Zou Aiken, Zou Lin, and Kanako Fujita, produced Naoya Fujita’s “Funeral March,” which focuses on a reclusive woman who steals her mother’s body and ventures into the snowy landscape of Hokkaido to fulfill her burial promise. The 2023 Skip City International D-Cinema Festival opened with Fujita’s “Kofubuki.”
Border-themed projects include Yuan Yuan’s debut feature Heading South, produced by Wang Jin, which introduces a 13-year-old Mongolian girl torn between her traditional roots and K-pop dance culture. Wang produced “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” which screened at Cannes in 2021.
Anthony Cheng, who won the Cannes Camera d’Or for Ilo Ilo, will co-produce Somewhere in the South, directed by Tan See Ding, with Edward Lim and Yap Kai Soon. The project centers on an aimless young man who becomes involved in a political campaign during a by-election in a Malaysian town.
Produced by Veronica Reim, Fernanda Renno, and Florence Stern, Dastan Zaper Riskerdi’s “Stuck Like Babies” follows a hardened Kyrgyz commander who forms an unlikely bond with a benevolent Tajik doctor after discovering a baby of unknown nationality at the tense border. Riskerdi’s “Border Transaction” will be screened in Busan in 2024.
Director Takuya Uchiyama, whose “Numbile” won the Special Jury Prize at Tokyo FILMeX 2025, has adapted Ryohei Machiya’s novel “Ao ga Shururu” into a film produced by Naomi Sato. The project depicts a Japanese castaway born through sperm donation who gradually reconnects with the people around him through encounters with strangers and former lovers.
Produced by Zhao Ziyang, Jiang Xiaoxuan’s “The Vulnerable Observer” tells the story of an anthropologist who travels to the Mongolian region in search of a research breakthrough and ends up questioning the initially friendly motives of his local guide. Mr. Zhang won the HKIFF Firebird Award in 2024 for “How to Kill a Mongolian Horse.”
