The Hong Kong International Film Festival Association has announced the second round of projects selected for the 24th Hong Kong-Asia Film Finance Forum, spotlighting 12 in-production titles that bring together Asian film stalwarts and promising newcomers.
The WIP line-up, scheduled to be unveiled from March 17-19 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center as part of the HKIFF Industrial Project Market, features notable stars such as Nick Cheung Ka-fai, Chung Su-Ein, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Christine Hakim, Reza Rahadian and Anjali Patil. Veteran producer Mabel Zhang Yuenting is one of the prominent figures backing the project, which has a budget of up to $2.2 million each.
Seven of the 12 titles were directorial debuts, with first-time filmmakers like Irvin Bellarmino, Xu Hui, and Chahat Mansingka standing behind the camera. These projects are primarily in the post-production stage and will proceed in parallel with FilMart, which is currently in its 30th year.
Chan and Chong headlined the comedy-drama “Good Trip,” directed by Norris Wong Eelam and Wong Hui, which tells the story of a film production assistant who goes on an unexpected journey with her dying father to fulfill his last wish. Cheung Yuen-ting, whose credits include the 2010 Berlinale Generations Crystal Bear Award winner Echoes of the Rainbow, is producing Hong Kong projects.
Indonesian stars Rahadian and Sastrowardoyo star in The Sea Speaks Its Name (Laut Bercelita), a political drama that follows a student activist who goes missing in the 1990s and whose family searches for answers. Josep Angi Noen will direct from a script produced by Gita Farah, whose film Punk (On the Knees), directed by Rahadian, won the Busan 2025 competition.
In Eddie Kayono’s My Mother, Hakim portrays a mother who longs to be reunited with her daughter, who is on death row in Saudi Arabia. The director’s “City” won Indonesia’s Citra Award for Best Film in 2015. A co-production between Indonesia, Japan and Hong Kong, it will be produced by Tika Bravani and Isabel Grachant.
Among her debut novels, Bellarmino’s “Lia” follows a hotel housekeeper who leads a punk community fighting eviction while caring for her adoptive mother. A Philippine, Norwegian, Dutch and Saudi Arabian co-production, it will be produced by Kristin de Leon and Arenberg Ang. Bellarmino’s short story “Agapito” was submitted to Cannes in 2025.
Taiwanese director Chin Chia-fa, who won the 2024 Golden Horse Award for “Trouble Girl,” will direct “A Ghost in the Market,” a supernatural drama about a murdered housewife who returns with a decaying body and continues her daily life. The project entered the HAF Film Lab in 2023 before progressing to the In Development section.
Other titles include Zhang Tao’s “Farewell, My Blue Bird,” which explores rural China’s youth through a woman who moves to the city after her construction worker husband is injured. Will You Still Be My Friend, directed by Lu Po-shun, is a Taiwanese-Singaporean co-production about two 13-year-old boys who face pressure from their families to compete for their friendship. And Ken Yan’s directorial debut, A Vampire, Probably, is a horror-fantasy about a teenage murderer who learns to reconstruct corpses at a funeral parlor.
Set in Kolkata’s declining Chinatown, Mansingka’s “Like a Feather in the Wind” centers on a lonely woman who begins seeing her late husband after her children leave home. Sound engineer Sailesh Rathnakumar makes his directorial debut with ‘Selvi’, in which Patil plays an immigrant home nurse whose grueling work schedule blurs boundaries.
“A Thousand Stars in a Galactic Night,” directed by former editor Xu Hui, is also in the lineup. This sci-fi suspense film stars Fang Yao and Beta Liu as temporary workers who uncover a hidden truth after their boyfriend’s disappearance. Shu’s short story “Walking with Her Into the Night” was submitted to Cannes Critics Week in 2023.
Indonesian producer Maisuke Taurisia, whose Edwin-directed Sleep No More was screened at this year’s Bernale Special, is backing Ariani Darmawan’s debut feature Jani Be Good, a drama about a 13-year-old Chinese-Indonesian girl caught between her controlling mother and her runaway sister.
The WIP project will be held on March 17 at the Starlight Theater at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center, where each team will present a 10-minute first look to industry attendees including distributors, producers, investors, festival programmers, and funders.
HKIFFS previously revealed 17 projects in development for HAF24, and plans to announce selected animation and genre projects next week.
