Marco Mueller Launching Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival and Film Market in Macau (EXCLUSIVE)

Patrick Frater
·3 min read
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Marco Mueller, the veteran film festival curator and director, is set to launch a new festival and market in Macau. It will have its first edition in January.

The Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival, running Jan. 5-11, will operate as a bridge between the mainland China markets and audiences and the production and sales industries behind arthouse cinema from Europe and other parts of Asia. Industry and public functions will be evenly matched.

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To be held at high-end venues, some with en-suite screening rooms, the industry side will be built around presentations of footage and trailers from the upcoming slates of some 30 European and Asian film sales companies. The industry-focused audience will comprise representatives from around 20 mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwanese film distributors, as well as delegates from several major European festivals.

Mueller has also booked 15 masterclass presentations by major directors, including Hamaguchi Ryusuke (“Evil Does Not Exist”), Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) and Amir Naderi (“Vegas: Based on a True Story”).

For the public and industry alike, the festival will also program a series of completed films that have not received mainland Chinese distribution, as well as some works in progress. The target audience is expected to be mainland Chinese cinephiles, students and a sprinkling of filmgoers from nearby Hong Kong.

In order to spearhead the Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival, Mueller, who is these days based in Shanghai, has had to amicably end his relationship with the Pingyao International Film Festival, run by mainland Chinese filmmaker and longtime ally Jia Zhangke.

Macau (also written Macao), a former Portuguese colony that returned to full Chinese control in 1999, is the only place in China where casinos are legal. Since its handover, Macau has become the world’s gambling capital. Its pre-COVID gambling turnover was significantly higher than that of Las Vegas.

Having reclaimed land from the seas and built huge architectural novelties, the tiny territory is now attempting to diversify beyond gambling, attract non-gambling tourism and stress its cultural and historical heritage. On the mouth of the Pearl River, Macau was a significant East-West meeting point for trade and religion long before near neighbor Hong Kong fell to the British at the beginning of the 19th century, and was developed as the region’s predominant commercial and financial hub.

Mueller, whose track record includes leading positions at festivals in Locarno, Rome, Venice and Beijing, views the new festival as an attempt to build Macau as a “hospitable meeting point” between the East and West, between China and other parts of Asia, and between the film industry and upscale audiences. “It has long been my dream to build Macau as a cultural paradise for the cinephile population,” he told Variety.

Mueller was previously among the founders of the International Film Festival & Awards Macao (IFFAM) that debuted in 2016, but he resigned due to creative differences before the first edition got under way. The IFFAM closed its doors after five editions, following a completely online festival in December 2020.

The new festival is backed by the Macau government, various commercial sponsors and the Association for the International Promotion of Chinese-Language Film, a Macau organization financed by Mainland investors.

The lineup for the first edition of the Asia-Europe Young Cinema Festival will be announced in early December.

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