The festival began as a showcase of Vietnamese cinema.
For its 20th anniversary, it is returning to those roots with a programme showing how Vietnamese cinema has changed over the past two decades.
Filmmakers who have attended the festival in previous years will also visit this year's edition.
Among them is Hàm Trần, whose film Journey from the Fall opened the festival 19 years ago. He will present his new film Hijacked this year.
A new section, Subverted Gazes, focuses on directors of Asian descent who see their future in Poland.
Curated with Chinese-born editor and Łódź Film School graduate Lu Xuan, the section includes six short films made by East Asian directors who studied at the school.
It looks at how living in Poland and studying at the film school in Łódź, central Poland, have influenced their perspectives and aesthetics.
“Every year, we try to present a lot of classic films, but we also keep our finger on the pulse of contemporary Asian cinema and pursue our cinephile projects, including retrospectives. We want to introduce filmmakers who have an unquestioned standing in Asia and show what audiences in Asia were watching in the 1980s and 1990s,” said festival artistic director Łukasz Mańkowski.
The anniversary section features films selected through an audience poll, including Microhabitat (2017), Rent a Cat (2012), Ploy (2007) and A City of Sadness (1989).
Two retrospectives are dedicated to Na Hong-jin, one of the most distinctive directors of New Korean Cinema, and Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark.
Tsui Hark is sometimes described as the “Hong Kong Steven Spielberg,” Mańkowski said.
The Tsui Hark retrospective includes films from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as his 1979 debut The Butterfly Murders, which has been restored in 4K.
Mańkowski said organising the Na Hong-jin retrospective had been easier.
The director's latest film, Hope, premiered at Cannes this year and was fairly well received. The retrospective consists of four films.
The New Asian Cinema competition section features 10 films and 10 stories from countries including South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, China, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Most films in the programme are Polish premieres. Mańkowski said they would be available in cinemas and through the festival's online programme, with most not expected to receive wider distribution afterwards. Exceptions include Hope and Ghost in the Cell.
He said the festival sought to acquire films that might otherwise not reach Polish audiences, adding that it was rare for such titles to become available later through streaming services.
The festival, organised by the Arteria Art Foundation since its establishment, has been held since 2007.
It is one of Poland's most important film events devoted to Asian cinema and cultures, and the most important Asian film festival in Central and Eastern Europe.
The 20th edition began on Tuesday and runs in cinemas until November 17. The online programme will remain available until December 6.
The full programme and schedule are available online.
(sp)
Source: PAP