Far East Film Festival lights up Udine: 75 films to chronicle today's Asia

Everything is ready in Udine for the 27th edition of the Far East Film Festival, which, from April 24 to May 2, 2025, returns renewing its commitment to be a cultural bridge between East and West. A journey through time and society, through theeye of Asian cinema, offering audiences a magnifying glass on the present, the contradictions of modernity, values and transformations taking place inFar Eastern countries. From April 24 to May 2, 2025, Udine will once again transform into the European capital of Asian cinema, welcoming filmmakers, actors, critics and cinephiles from around the world.

This year’s program is packed: 75 films from 11 countries, including 48 in competition and 27 out of competition. The festival will host 7 world premieres, 15 international premieres, 20 European premieres and as many as 19 Italian premieres. Special attention is devoted to popular cinema, which today more than ever is a vehicle for social, political and cultural content, without giving up its mainstream entertainment nature. A cinema that is not afraid to ask uncomfortable questions or recount complex realities, while maintaining a strong narrative and emotional component.

A deep look at today’s Asia

FEFF is not just a festival; it aims to be a cultural vantage point. This year more than ever, the film selection becomes a mirror of contemporary Asian society. Mainland China is confirmed as a protagonist, with titles investigating issues of pressing relevance. Films such as Upstream, which explores the precariousness of work in the gig economy, and Green Wave, the festival’s opening film, which deals with the phenomenon of “tangping”-the rejection by the younger generation of the hypercompetitive logic of career advancement-are examples of a cinematography that is increasingly attentive to ongoing social changes.

Rounding out this multifaceted portrait of Asia are works about women’s empowerment(Her Story, Like a Rolling Stone, China), an aging population(Teki Cometh, Japan), social marginalization(Hear Me, Love in the Big City, South Korea), and civil rights(Sunshine, Philippines). Each film is an open window on an issue, a dream, a conflict, told with the tools of popular cinema, but often with a depth that defies expectations.

A legend of Asian cinema receives the Golden Mulberry for lifetime achievement

After awarding master Zhang Yimou in 2024, this year FEFF welcomes a true queen of Asian cinema: Sylvia Chang. A multifaceted icon - actress, director, screenwriter, singer, producer, and even radio DJ - Chang will receive the prestigious Gelso d’Oro alla Carriera on stage at the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine. Her presence will not only be celebratory: in fact, the festival will offer a retrospective dedicated to her career, with titles spanning eras and genres, offering audiences the chance to discover (or rediscover) her greatness.

Among the titles on the program are Tsui Hark’s Shanghai Blues - a restored classic celebrating yesterday’s diva - and Daughter’s Daughter, an intense family drama that tells the mature face of a director capable of looking at the present with lucidity and tenderness. FEFF 27 thus proves once again that cinema is also memory, reflection and recognition of artistic greatness.

A closing... with surprise!

The festival will close with a double event: a surprise film and the highly anticipated Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie, a film adaptation of the hit manga of the same name. Set against the explosive backdrop of the Music Battle Awards 2025, the film promises to be an explosion of creativity, music, and humor, with an unlikely protagonist-the ancient Chinese strategist Zhuge Liang reincarnated-who moves through the world of Japanese pop with great anarchic spirit. A perfect ending for a show that has made cultural hybridization and freedom of expression its strong points.

The film is already considered a cult among festival fans, and its screening will be one of the most anticipated events. Between laughter, surprises and reflections, the FEFF confirms itself as the ideal place for those who love cinema capable of breaking the boundaries between genres, languages and cultures.

Over 100 events to transform Udine into the Asian Zone.

During the nine days of the festival, Udine will dress itself in Asia. With more than 100 side events including screenings, talks, meetings with protagonists, masterclasses, industry(Focus Asia), journalistic(Bamboo) and educational(FEFF Campus) itineraries, the city’s historic center will be transformed into a veritable Asian Zone. The red carpet of the Teatro Nuovo, the charm of the Visionario, exhibitions, markets, gastronomic and musical events will make Udine a lively and colorful stage, capable of attracting not only cinephiles but also the merely curious and fans of Asian culture.

Making all this possible are, as always, main sponsors Credifriuli and Amga Energia & Servizi - a commercial brand of the Hera Group - who support one of Europe’s most significant cultural events in the panorama of film festivals.

Mondo Mizuki, Mondo Yokai: the exhibition event at Casa Cavazzini

In parallel with the festival, from April 26 to August 30, 2025, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Casa Cavazzini” will host Mondo Mizuki, Mondo Yokai, a major exhibition dedicated to Shigeru Mizuki, legendary Japanese mangaka known for his stories about yokai - the mythological creatures of Japanese folklore. The exhibition, curated by Canicola, Vincenzo Filosa and Mizuki Productions (Tokyo), brings together more than 100 original works, many of them exhibited for the first time outside Japan, along with reproductions, magazines, books and video documents.

In addition to the exhibition, the anthology The World of Round Slots, the first Western collection of Mizuki’s unpublished short stories and writings from the historic “Garo” magazine, will also be published. This is a unique opportunity to explore a complex and fascinating fictional universe where the boundaries between the real and supernatural are constantly blurred.

In theme with the exhibition, FEFF is dedicating its retrospective this year to Asian folklore monsters under the title: Yokai and Other Monsters: from Folklore to Film. Twelve films will populate the festival’s screens with legendary figures such as the Snow Woman, Thailand’s flying little head Krasue, the terrifying Filipino Manananggal, and the Jiangshi, the Chinese vampire who jumps and appeases with rice, not garlic. It is a journey that shows the extent to which Asian cinema, like Western cinema, has drawn heavily on its own mythologies to shape disturbing, fascinating and powerfully symbolic narratives.

This section is not only a tribute to genre cinema, but also a reflection on the function of the monster in popular culture: that which is scary, that which is excluded, that which reminds us of who we are or who we might become. A celebration of diversity, tradition and creativity that spans the entire Asian continent.

Far East Film Festival lights up Udine: 75 films to chronicle today's Asia

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