Author: Clarence Tsui

With his first feature ‘Leave the Cat Alone’ competing in Busan, Japanese filmmaker Daisuke Shigaya offers a sensitive and subdued exploration into the loves and hopes of some artistic millennials.

Iranian cineaste Jafar Panahi talks about his 30-year relationship with BIFF and calls for a change in the Academy Awards’ submission rules.

New York-based Tajik-American filmmaker Isabelle Kalandar bows in competition at Busan with ‘Another Birth’, a mesmerising rite-of-passage drama bolstered by poetry, picturesque landscapes and a powerful turn from its child actor.

Koto Nagata’s surprisingly subtle and melancholy suspense thriller ‘Baka’s Identity’ about three Japanese scammers vaunts nuanced performances but gets derailed by flashbacks.