Two Columbia Projects Participate in 2021 Asian Project Market
Two films by Columbia filmmakers were selected to participate in the Asian Project Market during the Busan International Film Festival from October 12 to 14, 2021. Spectrum, co-written and directed by alumna Bora Kim '11, and Sisyphus, directed by alumna Xixi Wang '19, produced by Meng Xiong '19, and co-written by Wang and Xiong are two of twenty-five projects officially invited to the market. The filmmakers will be provided with one-on-one meetings with film industry professionals. They are also automatically nominated for Asian Project Market awards.
Spectrum is an adaptation of a sci-fi novel about humans and aliens coexisting in a distant future. A female biologist who went missing for more than 40 years encounters intelligent life that looks after humans on a planet outside the solar system.
Bora Kim’s first feature film, House of Hummingbird (2018), won more than 60 awards in Korea and abroad, including a KNN Audience Award and NETPAC Award at Busan International Film Festival 2018, Generation 14 Plus Grand Prix at Berlin International Film Festival 2019, Best International Picture at Tribeca Film Festival 2019, Best Feature Film at Istanbul International Film Festival 2019, Best Screenplay at the Blue Dragon Awards 2019, Best Director at Baeksang Art Awards 2020, and others. House of Hummingbird (2018), with a 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, was chosen as one of the best films of 2020 by The New York Times’ Critics Pick, IndieWire, and Metacritic.
In Sisyphus, a single mother decides to uncover the truth after her only son is electrocuted on a subway track. During the investigation, she manages to find a new purpose in her life. Sisyphus is Wang's first feature project. The film was also officially selected for the Sundance Institute 2020 Directors and Screenwriters Lab, and the FIRST Financing Forum at FIRST International Film Festival Xining 2019.
Wang, a Chinese writer and director, is currently teaching full-time in the Screenwriting and Film Studies Department at Beijing Film Academy. Wang was an Asian Film Academy 2019 fellow. Her films have screened at major Chinese and international film festivals. Her MFA thesis film, Greenhouse (2019), was officially selected at Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2020 and Carmarthen Bay Film Festival 2020, and won the Project Horizon Special Jury Award at CineCina Film Festival 2019. She was also awarded Best Director, an Audience Award, and Jury Selects at Columbia University Film Festival 2019.
Meng Xiong is a Chinese writer and producer who has written and produced over fourteen short films in China, Australia, and the US. Her films have been selected and won awards at Sydney Film Festival, the Australian Director’s Guild, and Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, among others. She is the recipient of the Leone Family Film Grant, Panavision Production Sponsorship, and 3PAS Studios Award for Excellence in Producing. Her feature project was shortlisted at the Berlinale Talents Project Market. Her MFA thesis film, Ayaan (directed by alumna Alies Sluiter '20), was the recipient of Jury Honors, the IFP Audience Award, and a National Board of Review Student Grant at Columbia University Film Festival 2019. Xiong is currently a feature producer at Bliss Tigris Culture Media.
The Asian Project Market (APM) is a first launched co-production platform in Asia that offers emerging filmmakers the opportunity to meet international leading film professionals. After launching in 1998 as Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), it has grown into the biggest and most important pre-market in Asia. In 2011, it was renamed as Asian Project Market and has been successfully delivering its role as cradle of creativity. Each year APM discovers fresh feature film projects ranging from big-scale commercial ones to low-budget indies to link them with global film investors, producers and distributors. Numerous APM projects have already made it through to completion and received positive responses from both film festivals and international audiences.