Open House & Late Night Series Art X 2023 — CRAVING FOR... Visual Feast: Film Screenings
25/03/2023 19:00 HEAVY CRAVING
25/03/2023 21:00 THE ZEN DIARY
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Times are tough. What is left to desire when we are feeling drained? No matter – life is a journey with all the flavours to meet our palates. Life is a feast, and how it tastes is how we experience the full spectrum of desires – mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs. Let’s escape to our delicious desires!
The Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC)’s signature programmes Opening House and Late Night Series – Art X, with the theme “Craving for…” to kick off 2023, present a full-day journey with diverse arts and culture on 25 March, 2023 (Saturday). Three food-related films will infuse your day with surprises and imagination: Heavy Craving – awarded at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, The Zen Diary - latest film starring Sawada Kenji and Matsu Takako, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover - a sight and sound feast with Peter Greenaway, Michael Nyman and Jean-Paul Gaultier.
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Thirty years old and 105 kilograms of weight, lunch lady Ying-Juan was dealt a bad hand. She works at her mother's childcare centre and has a harder time fitting in than a T-Rex in a petting zoo. On her birthday, Ying-Juan's mother signs her up for a weight loss programme. To earn her mom's approval, Ying-Juan reluctantly joins the class.
But things change when Ying-Juan meets Wu, a deliveryman who bears a checkered past underneath his radiant smile. Encouraged by Wu, Ying-Juan becomes more determined to lose weight. Meanwhile, Ying-Juan discovers Xiao-Yu, a straight-A student at the childcare centre, is a secret cross-dresser, and a special bond begins to form between them. Just when things are getting on the right track, Ying-Juan’s passion for cooking and life seem to be fading away due to her over-aggressive diet. Bitterly, Ying-Juan finds herself standing on the brink of a meltdown, both physically and psychologically…
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Japan | 2023 | 111’ | In Japanese with English subtitles | Colour
Director: Yûji Nakae
Cast: Kenji Sawada, Takako Matsu
Festivals:
San Sebastián International Film Festival 2022
Hawaii International Film Festival 2022
Writer Tsutomu lives alone at a mountain cabin in Nagano. He collects fruits and mushrooms from the mountain. He also raises vegetables in a field. Every day, he cooks his meals with these natural ingredients. Doing that, he can feel the flow of the seasons and he writes his book. Sometimes, his editor/girlfriend Machiko visits him. They cook with seasonal ingredients and eat together. They have a good time together. Tsutomu seems to be enjoying an easygoing life, but he is still unable to bury his dead wife's ashes in a grave. His wife died 13 years ago.
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Screening Programme 3: THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, AND HER LOVER Get your tickets here
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Cast: Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Alan Howard
Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Actor, Sitges Film Festival 1989
Best International Film, Independent Spirit Award 1990
Best Foreign Film, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 1991
The insatiable gourmet, the contemplative and lonely historian, the wife's desire for pleasure, are endlessly liberated in the dreamland of Le Hollandais gourmet restaurant. The luxurious decoration and colourful lighting presents an arena stage. Flickering lights and changing colours, releasing a shocking torrent of lust, appetite, murder and revenge… Let’s “eat" to enter the world of beasts, and behind the gorgeous and grotesque scenes, enjoy the sight of our civilised world of creation, consumption and craving.
Michael Nyman's score prominently incorporated his 1985 composition Memorial, together with the costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier and the cuisine props prepared by Italian chef Giorgio Locatelli - the film satisfies cravings of all senses.
**The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover has been rated as a category III film and can only be viewed by persons over the age of 18.**
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*Hong Kong Arts Centre is financially supported by the Arts Development Matching Grants Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
