International collaborations were top of mind in the Italian city of Udine during this year’s 24th annual Far Eastern Film Festival (FEFF), headlined by Sino-Italian co-production, The Italian Recipe.

Described as “Roman Holiday with Chinese flavours” in the official catalogue, the romcom by mainland Chinese director Zuxin Hou is about a young Chinese couple who forget their asymmetric identity/cultural backgrounds and share a night of joyful memories in Rome. Hou travelled from China to attend the world premiere of her debut feature. 

The Italian Recipe was one of 72 titles from 15 countries/territories screened during the nine-day festival, which aimed to promote East-West links through its focus on popular Asian cinema. After two pandemic-hit online/hybrid editions, FEFF this year returned to a full on-ground event. 

The film’s commercial potential, plus the cultural and tourism bonuses, drew the attention of European regional funders, including the Lazio International Cinema Fund and the Roma Lazio Film Commission, which endorsed the project. 

Cristiano Bortone, The Italian Recipe’s Italian producer and founder of production house Orisa Produzioni, said he was drawn to the project’s obvious commercial potential as well as the chance to explore opportunities with Chinese partners, including Fun Age Kaixin Mahua Pictures and Beijing WD Pictures.

“To balance the different priorities from each side is not easy,” he said, adding that “The Italian Recipe is a perfect example of combining the best of the European opportunities – regional funds, support from local television and government, and lots of sponsors – with Chinese equity.”

Overall, China played a strong hand across the FEFF programme, with seven Chinese films in competition. 

In addition to the world premiere of The Italian Recipe, Nice View, Too Cool to Kill and Manchurian Tiger made their international premieres, while Hi, Mom and I Am What I Am took their European bows. 

Fresh from its acclaimed Berlinale run, Return to Dust also met Italian audiences for the first time and picked up second place in the audience awards, while Too Cool to Kill took the third.

Liuying Cao, co-founder and head of international sales at Parallax Films, was among the Chinese attendees at this year’s Focus Asia industry event, which gathers professionals from both Asia and Europe to network, exchange views and develop partnerships. 

Speaking on a panel about Asian film distribution, Cao pointed out that although there were currently numerous international funding platforms available to Chinese projects, co-productions still faced obstacles, mostly associated with policy and censorship.

“International projects are hesitant to welcome Chinese co-producers as they are afraid that once a Chinese company is on board, they have to go through Chinese censorship procedure – even when the filmmaker is a non-Chinese,” she said. 

Since January this year, films from Mainland China must collect two certificates to be eligible to participate in overseas festivals. 

Apart from the “dragon seal”, which is granted after content censorship, a Permit for Public Projection of Films is now also required. 

This implies that selected films must be technically completed, which means Chinese films “lose the opportunity to harvest overseas funds to polish their post-production after the festival tour, which was common in the past,” Cao explained.

“It makes my job as a sales agent tougher. On the one hand, I have to spend more time negotiating with producers and filmmakers about distribution plans; on the other hand, the lengthy censorship period and its uncertainty cost many new films their windows to sign up for festivals,” she added. 

Bortone, who  jokes about seeing himself almost as  “Chinese producer”, seemed less daunted. “Some foreign producers are afraid of censorship. This is surely an issue. But if one is keen to work in China, there are still plenty of suitable topics and legit genre movies that can be made. It just requires a certain degree of patience.” – by Zhu Zijiao

Zhu Zijiao attended the Far East Film Festival as part of its 2022 Campus programme for aspiring writers and critics.