TIFF Keynotes Include Pedro Almodóvar, Andy Lau & ‘Concrete Utopia’ Stars
TIFF has begun announcing their Conversation With… (ICW) series for this year’s fest with Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar, Hong Kong actor Andy Lau and Concrete Utopia Korean stars Lee Byung-hun and Park
Seo-jun set to sit down for chats.
“TIFF’s 2023 In Conversation With… series exemplifies our belief that film can ignite perspectives and fuel
transformation,” said Anita Lee, TIFF Chief Programming Officer. “We are delighted to welcome a powerhouse lineup of international iconoclasts from Spain, South Korea, and Hong Kong for film lovers of all genres.”
Almodóvar is already set to receive TIFF’s Jeff Skoll Award in Impact Media this year at the fest’s Tribute Awards. His short, Strange Way of Life, which played at Cannes, will also make its North American premiere at TIFF. Short follows the relationship between a sheriff (Ethan Hawke) and a rancher
(Pedro Pascal) and their shared past.
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Concrete Utopia stars Lee Byung-hun and Park Seo-jun will be on hand to discuss the disaster epic which is currently in theaters in South Korea. Lee and Park began their careers in Korean television, with Lee appearing in such popular K-drama series as Tomorrow Love (1992–1994) and Beautiful My Lady (1997) before starring in Park Chan-wook’s international art-house hit Joint Security Area (2000) and Kim Jee-woon’s back-to-back megahits A Bittersweet Life (2005) and The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008). Lee has also starred in such Hollywood films such as G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) and The Magnificent Seven (2016),
Korean blockbusters like I Saw the Devil (2010) and Inside Men (2015).
Park Seo-jun starred in several wildly popular K-dramas and sitcoms, including Fight for My Way
(2017) and What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim (2018), and ran away with one of the lead roles in the
action-comedy hit Midnight Runners (2017). Park starred in the lead role of the Netflix breakout hit Itaewon Class (2020) and his memorable supporting role as Min-hyuk, who triggers the plot in Bong Joon-Ho’s Academy Award–winning class satire Parasite. He’ll star in the The Marvels due out in cinemas this November.
Lau is the star of Ning Hao’s The Movie Emperor, also playing TIFF this year. He started out in the early 1980s as an actor for Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), Hong Kong’s premier television network. He landed his first feature film role in Ann Hui’s Boat People (1982), a central work of the Hong Kong New Wave. In the late 1980s, Lau fully transitioned to working in film and enthralled audiences and critics alike in Wong Kar Wai’s As Tears Go By (1988) and Days of Being Wild (1990). Lau launched his own production company in the early 1990s and has starred in over 160 feature films, including Johnnie To’s relentless police thriller Running Out of Time (1999), Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s twisty and unpredictable Infernal Affairs (2002) and Infernal Affairs III (2003), Zhang Yimou’s martial arts epic House of Flying Daggers and Frant Gwo’s mega-action blockbuster The Wandering Earth 2 (2023).
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