Terracotta Festival

2010-02-13T06:55:00.001-08:00

gung hei fat choi!

2010-02-06T12:01:00.001-08:00

two events - http://bit.ly/terra1stbirthday and http://bit.ly/terrapresentslustcaution

2010-01-23T03:57:00.001-08:00

if you are Press, theres an FDA screening of BREATHLESS: 1.15pm, Tues 26th, Mr Youngs (www.sohoscreeningrooms.co.uk)

2010-01-20T15:04:00.001-08:00

Pls pass on: BREATHLESS in cinemas 29th Jan. Where to watch it: http://bit.ly/Breathless_Listings. Trailer: http://bit.ly/trailerbreathless

2010-01-16T03:13:00.001-08:00

TERRACOTTA FAR EAST FILM FESTIVAL 2010 dates: Thurs 6th - Sun 9th May. We are delighted to continue the fest at PCC (http://bit.ly/64WSG8)

2010-01-15T07:39:00.001-08:00

is 3pm friday too early to hit the shochu?well,we did confirm some BIG &AWESOME films this wk for festival.besides, i dont have no champagne

2010-01-12T14:30:00.001-08:00

http://ping.fm/Dev0M

2010-01-08T15:18:00.001-08:00

brian wilson fan? band i love,The Polly Tones, jus coverd entire Smile opus, using only voices & guitar. heres 1st bit: http://bit.ly/4MSHsN

2010-01-08T07:42:00.001-08:00

OH...MY....GOD..... i SO wana see this film. thanks to IAN M for sending thru. http://bit.ly/7y23k4

2010-01-02T15:17:00.001-08:00

i like big boars(& i cannot lie...) http://bit.ly/19uaYr DVD Mon 4th -no subs on trailer, giant human-eating pig on rampage.whats not 2like?

2009-12-13T01:20:00.001-08:00

Breathless UK Teaser Trailer - watch this and feel free to send to your friends: http://bit.ly/4OYy2P

2009-11-10T16:27:00.001-08:00

WWGD?

2009-11-07T17:24:00.001-08:00

ping.fm blogspot test

BACK ONCE AGAIN

2009-09-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

Well, work went underway on 1st Sept for the Terracotta Festival 2010.

We've already screened about 20-25 movies since then and found one or two gems, one or two not so gem like ones and some watchable, but possibly too run of the mill films.

stand out ones for us include: two chinese arthouse films LOST IN BEIJING which was banned in China due to its sexually expiclit nature, and stars Tony Leung Ka Fai; the other is IN LOVE WE TRUST which was brought to our attention from our friends in Paris.

KAMUI, a fugitive ninja story, is billed as being an USD18m action film. this opened in Toronto film fest and we sadly got only an unfinished version so cant really give it thumbs up or down right now. definitely one to keep in mind.

PONYO was slightly disappointing coming from the great Miyazaki, only because we had high expectations. perhaps the formula in the past of humans entering a fantasy world worked, but this time it was about fantasy creatures entering the world of humans which was enjoyable though not as captivating as previous Studio Ghibli classics.

DEPARTURES was a real stand out, after all, it DID win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film this year. Sadly, it wont be included in our line up next year, though, good news is.... it will be out on general release soon in the UK!!!

quick shout out to Louis of Sci-fi London who i met and introduced me to a trio of guys planning a Himalayan film fest in Feb which sounds great: just think of the diversity of cultures from that region, plus film makers from outside that region making films ABOUT the region! - more details on that to follow. (double shout to louis for introducing me to MEANTIME BEER - local beer from a brewery in Greenwich. get it? meantime?).

Well, asides of sitting at home and watching movies we are off to korea to,....well, er.... sit around and watch more movies. the slight difference will be that we will be at the Pusan Asian Film Market and hope to catch some of the latest films there.

On the distribution side, since our last post we released Taiwanese award winning multi-story film GOD MAN DOG and crazy macabre circus antic filled FOX FAMILY. We held some special screenings of both- keep your eyes open for our newsletters or on our fb group which both have news about our screenings as well as this blog.

Adding to the good news tally... we picked up Yang Ik-junes BREATHLESS, which, if you kept your ear to the ground in the last 12months has created quite a few underground murmurs during its slow march westwards across the globe from Korea conquering the film festivals to pick up more than 13 awards at various festivals from Singapore to New York.

thats big news for us.

and a i guess, a good note to end our first post back after a while.
we will be posting stuff almost daily from Pusan, so stay tuned!

PHOTOS

2009-07-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Terracotta Festival Photos

www.flickr.com/groups/TerracottaLondon

Feel free to post any photos that you took!

Also, keep an eye out for screenings of our upcoming films FOX FAMILY and GOD MAN DOG.

2010

2009-07-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

well... work on the 2010 edition of the Terracotta Festival has begun.
we are contacting sponsors, sifting through reviews, finding out about whats being made in Asia right now.

stay tuned to see how it all plays out!!

3 down 1 to go..

2009-05-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

jam packed day 3 today.

started off with moving some record turntables from our house to the cinema, getting them ready for the closing night party (yes, thats how DIY our festival is).

then an exciting lunch with Xavier Jamaux, a.k.a. Bang Bang, the soundtrack writer for SPARROW and Shan from Milkyway Image, the production company behind Johnnie Tos' films, who've taken the time to come to our little festival!

more excitement at the cinema - just before DREAM was due to kick off, the curtains for the cinema screen decided not to open (the mechanisms to pull the huge curtains open, failed), leaving the cinema projectionist to become the in-house spiderman and climb up the rigging, and pull the curtain fastenings open with a coat hanger!!

Despite the slightly delayed start, DREAM was very well attended and well liked.

It was great to see a smattering of Japanese people in the audience for comedy caper AFTER SCHOOL - irashai! - with lots of laughs all round.

Fun also to meet so many people at the festival in between movies - including Celina Jades (star of LEGENDARY ASSASSIN) old flatmates.

one of the great things being at the Prince Charles Cinema is the proximity to everything - from Ben & Jerrys Vanilla Toffe Fudge milkshakes to hand-drawn noodles at Super Star restuarant on Lisle St (note, regular PCC customers get 15% off final bill).

a quick drink with Festival Pass holders at the end of the night after ZOMBI KAMPUNG PISANG to get their feedback on how we are doing, then......damn, missed last tubes home, another long walk back.......

It's Started!!

2009-05-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

Festival kicked off on Thursday with EYE FOR AN EYE followed by a party with a balcony overlooking Leicester Square!!

Whilst talking with the crowd, it turns out that people from Paris, Scotland and even LA have come to our fest!!!

2nd day today - just finished on a great Manga party at Bincho Yakitori, Old Compton St, with some great cosplay attendance - shout out to Andy dressed as RYU! and our eventual winner of the cosplay prize of DVDs from ThirdWindow Films, Manga and Terracotta Distribution, known only as PlasticSister.

Helen McCarthy gave a very informative and insightful Q&A after GHOST IN THE SHELL 2.0 - she knows a thing or two about Manga, being the first English speaking language person to have written a book on the subject and speaking regularly at conventions.

Oxide Pang gave a video introduction to his film THE DETECTIVE starring Aaron Kwok - he was happy that his film got selected for this festival and it was the first mystery film that he shot.

so far the audience leader board scores are as follows:

EYE FOR AN EYE 6.97
ME...MYSELF 7.42
KEEPING WATCH 7.18
THE DETECTIVE 7.2
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2.0 8.13

so....Mamoru Oshii's reworking of his classic film is in the lead!!!!

to keep up to date - stay tuned to this blog....or better still, come join us from DAY 3 and DAY 4!!!!

coming up tomorrow:

from the director of 3-iron (Kim Ki-duk) DREAM.
AFTER SCHOOL - japanese comedy caper with twists and turns, yakuza and a sex shop owner!
LEGENDARY ASSASSIN with Wu Jing and Celina Jade
ZOMBIES FROM BANANA VILLAGE

More guest!, more press!, more stress!

2009-05-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, its been a busy, hectic and just slightly stressful (though overall enjoyable) few days since the last blog (and yes, I did find time for the season finale of LOST since some of you were asking).

We hope that you will enjoy this festival and our free parties - starts tomorrow!!! - and do keep sending messages and feedback (joey[at]TerracottaDistribution.com).

If you spotted our festival in any publications or newspapers, do let us know.

As well as our SKY MOVIES interview on THE MOVIE GEEK

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/TerracottaFestival/video/x98kwf_sky-movie-geeks-terracotta-festival_shortfilms

we are pleased to let you know that BBC LONDON will do a feature on our festival at 1pm tomorrow (Thursday 21st) and I will be speaking live to the good people of this city (94.9FM in case you're interested).

So, a suprise call this morning from one of the guys at Milkyway Image (if you don't know, thats Johnnie To's production company; and if you don't know Johnnie To, you need to - come and watch SPARROW). They are bringing a team of people over for the festival and we will hold a Q&A panel discussion at the end of SPARROW; what a wonderful, happy end to the festival and then off to GOLDEN HARVEST for some SUNLIK beer and music from DJ BANGBANG.

Thanks to Xavier Jamaux for telling Shan at Milkyway about our festival.

Heres the synopsis and Q&A panel;

http://www.terracottafestival.com/films/sparrow

Look forward to meeting you all tomorrow and spending time talking to you over the next four days.

http://www.terracottafestival.com/films/sparrow/

French music, vietnamese food, East end video stores

2009-05-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

During my travels round London making a nuisance of myself with posters and flyers, I came across the most awesomest video rental store. i didnt think you get places like this anymore since TODAY IS BORING closed down.

http://www.close-upvideos.com/

shout out to Nina/Neena behind the counter of this Brick Lane store who told me they get like 50 new members signing up every week to their rental service - goes to show that film loving on a physical format is thankfully still alive!! (Terracotta's release of HANSEL AND GRETEL was on display there and apparently rents quite well too!).

all we need is some of those people to come to our festival to explore Far East film on the big screen; guilty customers please contact us via:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=72515635834

Also goes to show the changing face of brick lane in becoming a spawned offshoot of what hoxton&shoreditch used to be, (lights years before it became a west-end clone).

Talking of Shoreditch - thankfully the constant remains - the Vietnamese Noodle places.

Hopefully a leaflet of the festival left in every outlet along Kingsland Road will help to boost their trade! "Try a prawn steamed roll (banh cuon) whilst you read your copy of the Terracotta Festival 09 flyer."

if anything, flyering is a fun job. you get to meet people instead of sat at a desk and computer stressing about some report or spreadsheet that someone on the 5th floor of your building wants by 6.30 on friday evening.

shouts out to Paul at film london, Lee theTea doorman, roberto the taekwondo bloke, the nice people in the brick lane coffee shop who let me put up a poster on the wall below their photo of bruce lee (my father went to school with him, you know), Lee from the vietnamese grocers (get your rice and soya sauce from the kingsland rd viet grocers if you live near there).

On an altogether more serious note, fans of AIR and NOUVELLE VAGUE will be delighted to know that Xavier Jamaux, a french musician who has collaborated with those groups AND written the score to SPARROW, our closing film by hong kong cinema maestro Johnnie To, will also be a guest at our festival.

we hope to see him in action being a DJ on one of our party nights.

do check the above facebook link for all info regarding parties (including a manga cosplay party!).

parties, posters & hip hop clothes

2009-05-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

a little bit more of the same today - running around like a mad man distributing posters and leaflets around different parts of London, plus a little bit of editing at the darepost studios.

this time, flying visits to our supporting organisiations, our excellent PR co The Associates, Japan Foundation (which does some great screenings and talks - check www.jpf.org.uk), Dailymotion Headquarters in the oh so trendy vicinity of curtain road, and Cinephilia, just off bethnal green (as i was crossing the road, to get to their shop, i was thinking what a clever chap this guy is, starting a shop here when the rent is cheap and before the opening of the bishopsgate tube stop next year).

then back to my roots - flyering in the record shops around soho market (shout out to JP at Vinyl records who never recognises or remembers me), clothes shops, korean restaurants and a chance encounter with Mr. Tony from Dark n Cold - a damn fine and well laid out hip hop clothes store if i ever saw one.

go check out Mr Tonys shop - especially if you are from Japan, China, or Singpore (where Mr Tony lived for 5 years) coming to London to do some shopping for jeans etc. would definitely recommend it.

also busy checking out party venues and will make an announcement on this blog soon about the venues (what??? did someone say cozplay?....)

oh yeah forgot to mention - was having lunch at Golden Harvest dim sum place with Adam from Third Window Films and we were swapping our DVDs, planning the parties, talking about Cannes.....I got asked to leave as the staff thought I was a counterfeit DVD seller!!!!!!

south

2009-05-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

if you live south of the river, we are loving LyLy canteen in Balham (which is apparently the new Clapham, which was the new Chelsea about 10 years ago).

www.LyLyCanteen.co.uk

good noodles!

to the staff at ly ly canteen: thanks for putting info about our festival!

fatigue

2009-05-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

had festival fatigue over the weekend.

for over half a year, talking, thinking, writing, mailing, watching films, travelling to watch films and meet people, about the festival. just festival festival festival. became a bit tiring.

so i switched off and watched 3 episodes of LOST in a row.

but now IM BACK!

spent today walking around west end giving restaurants and cultural organisations (like malayia tourism and korean cultural centre) our booklets and posters. also hit up FOPP on shaftesbury avenue (shout to to Heidi!) and Forbidden Planet a little further down the road.

thanks to miss claire marty for helping out delivering leaflets and posters to SOAS.

also stopped at the awesome leongs legends restaurant opposite de heims to meet francois from dimsum.co.uk and have some...er dim sum! look out dimsum.co.uk readers, our info will hit your site soon too.

only 2 weeks to go......

the final push, so please do tell everyone about our festival.

last few things to do - got interviewed by SKY MOVIE GEEKS, a show on SKY MOVIES and so i will receive the footage from that and post on our dailymotion site.if you are a SKY movies subscriber, i think the programme goes out tomorrow (6th May) and will be repeated regularly throughout the month.

cant wait to see the edited version - thanks to Amanny and Josh over at SKY for putting this together!

also, i was on the other side of the camera, doing the interviewing, when we were out in hong kong film fest and udine film festival (www.FarEastFilm.com) for directors etc to introduce their film that we are showing at our festival. need to edit that down as well on friday (at the excellent post production house - www.darepost.co.uk).

then just after that, just the parties to finish organising!

TERRACOTTA goes INTERNATIONAL!!

2009-05-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

woah...

just got an email to say that we will have people coming all the way from paris and aberdeen, just to come to our festival!!!

does that make as an international festival?!?!?!?

Programmes and Pusan

2009-05-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

just back from an afternoon of handing out copies of our programme leaflets out in town - thanks to all the staff at my favourite restaurants for stocking them!!

Ikkyusan, Gerrard St
Hi Sushi, Frith St
Kyoto, Romily St
Golden Harvest, Gerrard St
Leongs Legend, Macclesfield Place
Arigato, Brewer St
Ryo, Brewer St
Ten Ten Tei, Brewer St

All the above restaurants come with an official Terracotta thumbs-up!!

Talking of food.....just back from dinner with Mr. Kim Dong Ho, director of Pusan International Film Festival (www.piff.org) who was on a flying visit to London, to find out how a REAL festival is run!!

GUEST SPEAKER

2009-05-01T20:39:00.000-07:00

The first update to our programme.

GHOST IN THE SHELL 2.0
FRIDAY 8.45pm 22nd May 09

Will be followed by a guest speaker.....Helen McCarthy!!

Excited? you should be!

Helen is the first English-speaking person to write a book about anime and has been heavily involved in the UK manga scene, speaking at conventions and festivals.

We are definitely very happy that Helen will speak after the film and would like to thank the staff at Manga for putting us in touch with her.

2009-05-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

in true 21st century fashion, you can now follow us online:

facebook Terracotta festival event page:

facebook.com/event.php?eid=72515635834

facebook TERRACOTTA group for latest release news, competitions and screenings:

facebook.com/group.php?gid=40238749303

www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=8324338150

myspace.com/TerracottaDistribution

Twitter: Joey Terracotta

STUMBLE: joeyleung.stumbleupon.com

ALIVENOTEDEAD: Joey Terracotta

GETCLOSER OFFICIAL TERRACOTTA FESTIVAL PAGE:
getcloser.com/Event/Terracotta+Far+East+Film+Festival+09/1015/

GETCLOSER Far East Film Room:
getcloser.com/rooms/Far+East+Film/467/

DAILYMOTION OFFICIAL TERRACOTTA FESTIVAL PAGE:
dailymotion.com/TerracottaFestival

3 weeks to go!!!!!

2009-05-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Only three weeks to go now before it all kicks off.....so lets start a weblog...

Terracotta Festival is almost here.

If you've come from the Official Website, then this is a place for updates to our programme, or news on our events or just some scribbles about something whilst I take a rare break from working on all things Terracotta.

If you've come to this page via blogger.com or a search engine, then be sure to check www.TerracottaFestival.com and www.TerracottaDistribution.com to know what we do.