Asiaticafilmmediale, come to the eighth edition, will take place from 17th to 25th November at the cinema Casa del Cinema (largo M. Mastroianni 1 – Rome) and in the halls of the cinema Nuovo Olimpia (Via in Lucina 16/G –  Rome). This year’s program is rich in films and documentaries, meetings with directors and actors, as well as an interesting selection of screenings in combination with the presentation of as many books on Asia, recently published in Italy.      
 
The event was made possible by the Cultural Association Mnemosyne, under the artistic direction of Italo Spinelli, and thanks the support of the Ministery for Arts and Culture, General Direction for Cinema of the City of Rome, Council Department for Cultural Politics of the Region Lazio and the Province of Rome, in collaboration with the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, Casa del Cinema, Circuito Cinema. The event is under the sponsorship of the Embassies and Culture Institutes of the Asian countries.  

The audience will have the opportunity to see the Italian and European premieres of films and documentaries shot in Azerbaijan, Burma, Cambodia, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kirghizstan, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam. An unique opportunity for discovering the most interesting and original filmmakers of the Asian cinematic universe, who, after the big success in the native countries, finally arrive to Rome.  
The guiding thread of the present edition will be the particular attention paid to the different modalities of possible interlacing of reality and fiction, in the contest of an Asian universe going through vast and rapid processes of transformation.
 
After the Focus India, which has been presented by the Festival Festa del Cinema of Rome, Asiaticafilmmediale aims at investigating the independent cinematography of the subcontinent, presenting films coming from all the Indian territory:

• from the east, shot in Mumbay (Bombay), “Freaky useless spicy story” by Kalpesh Ci Patel: a gangster story written in an unconventional film language about the frenetic and ultramodern life style of the city of Bombay. Again from the same Indian metropolis the documentary “Seven Tales from an  Island” by  Arundati  Mitra, about the organized crime and its connivances with Bollywood’s film world;

• from the south, Chennai  (Madras), “The sea within”, presented in world premiere in Rome by the director Shyamaprasad, the opening film of the next International Film Festival of India;
• from the north, shot in Ladakh, “Frozen” by director Shivajee Chandrabushan, who will be present at the Festival together with the main actress Gauri Anand Kulkarni, the film describes as the quite life a family in a remote village is broken by the arrival of a military settlement; the Nepalese documentary “We corner people” by Kesang Tseten, about the vicissitudes of a small community in Nepal struggling with the construction of a bridge; from Assam “AFSPA1958”, about the dramatic manifestations connected with the Assamese independence movement;
• from the west, stories which tell the explosive situation of West Bengal, with the most recent film by director Goutam Ghose, “Calcutta, my love”, a fresco on the struggles leading from the rebellion in Bengal in ’68 to the birth of the Naxalit armed movement, and two documentaries, “Whose land is it anyway?” by Ladly Mukhopadhaja, about the forced expropriation of the lands in favour of industrial settlements, and “Non cederemo né ora né mai” by Danilo Licciardello, with the most recent interviews with leaders like Mahasweta Devi and Medha Patkar.

And “Loins of Punjab presents”, a overwhelming comedy starring among others Shabana Azmi, about the adventures of five Indians in New Jersey, directed by Manish Acharya, who will be present at the Festival.

From central Asia is “Pure  Coolness”, the first film in competition will be screened at the presence of its director, Ernest  Abdyjaparov, and tells the story of the kidnapping of a city girl, as it frequently happens in Kirghizstan, and her discovery of the fascinating life in the magnificent mountain regions of the country, where her kidnapper brings her to.
Among the Chinese films we’ll see “An Zi”, by Lei  Xiaobao, the denunciation of the ruinous and ineluctable vicissitude of the protagonist, a sort of Chinese Woyzeck, and the documentary by Xu Xin, “Torch Troupes”, consecrated to the describing of the world of traditional opera which still bravely resists against the prevailing homologation of cultures.  
From Iran Asiaticafilmmediale guests two authors, the female documentary director Firouzeh Khosrovani, who shows the strong video “Rough cut”, and Babak  Shirinsefat, director of “Raami”, set during the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Besides that, we’ll see “Half Moon” by the Kurdish-Iranian director Bahaman Ghobadi, and the film by Saman Moghaddam “Café Setareh”, the story of the everyday life of three women in an ancient district of Tehran. Finally we’ll present the documentary “I am not nuclear energy” by Mehdi Ghorbanpour, about the consequences of the nuclear environment in Iran.

From the main Indonesian director, Riri Riza, “Three  days to forever”, a road movie which follows the protagonists, a teenager and his cousin, while they break different social taboos during their car trip to a family wedding. The two documentaries “The Jak” by Yusuf Andibachtiar, about the phenomenon of the fanatical football supporters which infects also Indonesia, and “Playing between elephants” by Aryo Danusiri, dedicated to the corruption in the post-tsunami era.
From Sri Lanka a dramatic film about kamikaze women, “My daughter the terrorist” by the Norwegian female director  Beate Arnestad, and from China the documentary Neo Lounge by Joanna Vasquez Arong, about the life in Beijing of a Bulgarian jazz singer, an Italian Businessman and their picturesque friends; both of these films are presented together by the Asiaticafilmmediale and the Festival dei Popoli di Firenze, two events which are inaugurating in this occasion the future collaboration.
From the Philippines  “Coconut  Whiskey” by Paolo  Herras, about the devastating power of love.

From Thailand in Italian premiere, “Ploy”, the most recent film of the well-known director Pen-ek Rataruang.
 
The Festival Asiaticafilmmediale will consecrate a special event to Burma, with the screening of never seen documentaries. A journey in the history of the past, in Buddhism and the most recent dramatic events, and a number of meetings with personalities connected to the destiny of this country, and the presentation of the new book of Cecilia Brighi “Il Pavone e i  generali”.
 
 To the fascinating Ladakh  will be dedicated the second special event, which proposes again the documentary “Ladakh, il centro dei  passi” shot 1977 by Marina Colonna  and Gaia Ceriana, after thirty years Mario Gianni interviewed the protagonists of. The reign of Ladakh rose back in 11th century after the falling of the Yarlung dynasty in Tibet. At present the Ladakh region, situated in the extreme north of the Indian sub-continent, is part of the states of Jammu and Kashmir, its annexation to India hasn’t influenced at all the originality of its culture and religion. A photographic exhibition of the painter  Marco Tirelli “Verso il Ladakh” will take the audience to this far region.
  
Like in the past years, the present edition of “Incontri di Asiatica” will inaugurate a festival section dedicated to Incontri tra Cinema e  Letteratura, (Meetings between cinema and literature), with the presentation of literary works connected to the Asian continent. One of these tributes will be to the personality and work – recently republished by Mondatori’s Meridiano – of Fosco Maraini, ethnologist, anthropologist, photographer, Orient expert, poet,  alpinist, writer, university professor and documentary director, with the screening, among others, of his video L’Isola delle  pescatrici .

The Festival will conclude with the prize giving: two awards Premi Città di Roma (City of Rome Award), one for the best Asian film and the best documentary, and Premio del Pubblico (Audience Award).
The feature film jury is acted by Gianni Amelio, the documentaries jury by Duilio Gianmaria and the Netpac jury by  Ashley Ratnavibhushana.