All posts tagged: Asia

Tadanobu Asano Honored With THR’s Trailblazer Award at Tokyo Gala

Tadanobu Asano Honored With THR’s Trailblazer Award at Tokyo Gala

Ramping up the glitz and glamour from last year’s launch shindig, The Hollywood Reporter Japan turned on the style once more for its Trailblazer Award Gala Party, held Wednesday night at The Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo’s Ginza district. Held during the Tokyo International Film Festival, this year’s THR Japan gala event was an even hotter ticket than in 2023, with a veritable who’s who of Japan’s film industry, as well as sprinkling of sports legends and local celebs, who all graced the red carpet to join the celebrations to honor Shogun star Tadanobu Asano, the first Japanese recipient of THR’s Trailblazer Award. The Trailblazer Award is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. Since his debut on Japanese television as a 16-year-old, Asano’s career has taken him from Hirokazu Koreeda’s Maborosi to Takashi Miike’s notorious Ichi the Killer, through the Marvel universe and most recently in FX’s all-conquering Shogun, which made history at the 2024 Emmys by winning the most awards by any show …

Lawsuit Says Scott Kahn Ditched Phillips Asia Show for David Zwirner

Lawsuit Says Scott Kahn Ditched Phillips Asia Show for David Zwirner

Dealer and curator Eric Ian Hornak-Spoutz has filed suit against painter Scott Kahn, who is accused of breaching his contractual obligations to Hornak-Spoutz by abruptly terminating an exhibition at the Phillips in Hong Kong in order to join David Zwirner’s roster. At the center of the suit, which was filed on Monday in New York State Supreme Court in Westchester County, is the exhibition, which Hornak-Spoutz says was born out of an hours-long Zoom call in November 2022. Also on that call were Jonathan Crockett, chairman of Phillips Asia, and Kahn himself, according to the suit. The exhibition, which was meant to take place between October 26, 2023, and November 5, 2023, was to contain around 50 to 60 paintings.  Related Articles While Hornak-Spoutz and Kahn never signed an official contract, the two had been working together, the lawsuit says, since Kahn consigned 20 works to Hornak-Spoutz. Hornak-Spoutz then sold them at Gallery 928, his space in Marina Village in Florida. The gallery closed in 2014, the same year it tried to sell paintings it …

China confirms pact with India to ‘resolve’ conflict over disputed border | Border Disputes News

China confirms pact with India to ‘resolve’ conflict over disputed border | Border Disputes News

Beijing signals ‘positive approval’ for deal as Chinese President Xi and Indian PM Modi attend BRICS summit in Russia. China has confirmed reaching a deal with India over their disputed border in the Himalayan region, a day after New Delhi said it had struck an agreement with Beijing for military patrols along the frontier. But the announcement on Tuesday did not explain whether the pact covered the length of the border or just points where the two sides have been involved in a standoff since 2020. Relations between the world’s two most populous, nuclear-armed neighbours have been strained since clashes between their troops on the largely undemarcated frontier in the western Himalayas’ Ladakh region four years ago killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. Since the skirmish in 2020, both sides pulled back tens of thousands of soldiers and agreed not to send patrols into a narrow strip surrounding the Line of Actual Control, which is an unofficial division about 3,488km (2,167 miles) long in the Himalayas, with China claiming a considerably shorter section. It …

Frieze VIP Program Lead by Regional Heads in the US, EMEA, and Asia

Frieze VIP Program Lead by Regional Heads in the US, EMEA, and Asia

Last summer, Frieze surprised the art world by announcing that it was adding two of the biggest art fairs in the US, The Armory Show and Expo Chicago, to its roster of major market events in London, Los Angeles, New York, and Seoul.  As Kristell Chade, executive director of Frieze Fairs, told ARTnews recently, that growth lead the art fair organizers to restructure and expand their VIP leadership team. In the past, there had been only one global director of VIP relations. Now, starting with Frieze London, which opens Wednesday, there are regional heads for the US, Europe, and Asia, which Chade said will help Frieze more effectively manage VIP outreach and experiences. Related Articles In 2022, Frieze London’s first VIP day suffered interminably long, seemingly motionless lines that led to frustration for the fair’s most important attendees. As one art advisor in attendance told ARTnews, the situation seemed to result from a faulty or disorganized ticketing system, leading some collectors to threaten to abandon the fair altogether. “It was like waiting for a sneaker drop,” the …

Tokyo International Film Festival Unveils 2024 Lineup

Tokyo International Film Festival Unveils 2024 Lineup

The Tokyo International Film Festival revealed its full 2024 lineup on Wednesday, including its main competition program and the Asian Future section for emerging regional filmmakers, as well as the all-new Women’s Empowerment section, which highlights nine films directed by women or involving female-focussed stories.  Tokyo’s 15-title main competition reveals a preference for securing world premieres over previously shown titles by established festival names. There are eight world premieres in the section — including Big World and My Friend An Delie by China’s Yang Lina and Dong Zijian, respectively; Papa from Hong Kong’s Philip Yung; The Englishman’s Papers from Portugal’s Sergio Graciano; and three Japanese features, among others (see full lineup below). Additional highlights include the international premiere of Midi Z’s The Unseen Sister and Huang Xi’s recent Toronto Film Festival entry Daughter’s Daughter, starring Sylvia Chang.  As previously announced, the competition titles will be assessed by a jury led by Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai. The other jurors include Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Italian actress Chiara Mastroianni, Hungarian filmmaker Enyedi Ildikó, and Japanese actress Ai Hashimoto. All films in the Asia Future Section …

Paramount+ Greenlights Aussie Thriller Series Playing Gracie Darling

Paramount+ Greenlights Aussie Thriller Series Playing Gracie Darling

Paramount+, in collaboration with Screen Australia and Screen NSW, is adding to its international slate with the commission of an original drama series down under titled Playing Gracie Darling. Set to debut in 2025, the six-hour supernatural thriller is produced by Curio Pictures, with Sony Pictures Television handling international distribution. Created and written by Miranda Nation (Undertow), and directed by Jonathan Brough (Rosehaven, The End), the series features an ensemble cast led by Morgana O’Reilly (The White Lotus, Season 3) as Joni. Joining her are Rudi Dharmalingam (Wakefield), Celia Pacquola (Rosehaven), Annie Maynard (Upper Middle Bogan), and Anne Tenney (The Castle). Paramount says additional casting announcements are expected soon. Playing Gracie Darling centers on the mysterious disappearance of a teenage girl, Gracie Darling, during a séance 27 years ago. In the present day, local children in a small town play a seemingly innocent game inspired by the tragedy, but when another girl vanishes, the unsettling mystery resurfaces. O’Reilly’s character, Joni, now a child psychologist, returns to her hometown to confront the ghosts of her past …

Kiyoshi Kurosawa on Anti-Capitalist Action Film ‘Cloud’

Kiyoshi Kurosawa on Anti-Capitalist Action Film ‘Cloud’

The last time the journeyman Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa was at the Venice Film Festival, he took home the event’s prestigious best director award for his period drama Wife of a Spy. He is back in the Italian festival’s main competition this week with Cloud, the first action film of his expansive and acclaimed filmography. The film received a boost on Friday morning ahead of its world premiere on the Lido, as news arrived in Venice that Japan had selected Cloud as its official entry to the Oscars’ best international film race.  The film tells the story of Ryōsuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda in a star-making performance), a worker at a small factory who makes money on the side as an online reseller of random goods — medical devices, handbags, collectible figurines — anything he can flip for a quick profit. Gradually, Yoshii begins shunning those around him — an old friend who taught him the reselling game, his thoughtful boss at the factory, some of the people he does business with online and in person — focussing exclusively …

Christie’s First Sale at New Asia Headquarters Lead By  M. Monet

Christie’s First Sale at New Asia Headquarters Lead By $35 M. Monet

One of Claude Monet‘s famous water lily paintings is slated to lead Christie’s first evening sale of 20th- and 21st-century art at its new Asia headquarters in Hong Kong on September 26. The work is expected to fetch between HK$200 million and HK$280 million ($25 million and $35 million), and if it sells for within that sum, it will become one of the most valuable Western artworks ever to hit the block in the region. The piece, titled Nymphéas (1897–99), shows the water lily pond at the artist’s home in Giverny, France. According to Christie’s, the painting is among the first devoted to that subject that Monet painted. After his death in 1926, the work stayed in his family for a number of years. It then ended up in a private collection before being consigned to Christie’s. Zao Wou-ki’s abstract work 05.06.80–Triptyque (1980), which comes with an estimate of HK$78 million to HK$128 million ($10 million to $15 million), will be on the block alongside the Monet. While Christie’s will debut in the Henderson, a building designed by …

Indian doctors call nationwide strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic | Protests News

Indian doctors call nationwide strike over rape and murder of Kolkata medic | Protests News

Hospitals to suspend non-essential services and medical procedures on Saturday as public fury over brutal attack grows. Indian doctors have called for a nationwide shutdown of hospital services as public fury over the rape and murder of a trainee medic in the eastern city of Kolkata last week mounts. The Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country’s largest grouping of medics with 400,000 members, said the 24-hour shutdown would be implemented on Saturday, affecting most hospital departments except for essential services. The shutdown comes after thousands of people took to the streets in several cities to express their outrage at the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor, whose brutalised body was found on August 9 at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. On Friday, large protests were held in various cities – including Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, Mumbai in the west and Hyderabad in southern India – demanding justice and better security at medical campuses and hospitals. “We want justice,” doctors chanted in Kolkata, waving handwritten signs that read, …