Hong Kong drama Afterpiece, produced by industry veteran Derek Yee and helmed by first-time feature filmmaker Keane T.K. Wong, will world-premiere as the opening film of the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival, the festival announced this week. The event’s full lineup will be unveiled on June 3, and the festival runs June 12-21 this year.
Written and directed by Wong, Afterpiece follows Owen, a celebrated stage director who has spent more than a decade in creative paralysis. When his former lover resurfaces and his wife begins to drift toward betrayal, Owen commits to writing, directing and starring in a new theatrical production — only to become dangerously entangled with an untrained young actress he encounters during casting, steadily dissolving the boundary between stage and life. Stephen Fung stars as Owen, with Chrissie Chau, Myolie Wu and Angela Yuen rounding out the cast.
The project grew out of the Directors’ Succession Scheme of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, which pairs established filmmakers with emerging directors as producer-mentors. Yee is best known for a string of gritty Hong Kong crime dramas including One Nite in Mongkok (2004), Protégé (2007) and Shinjuku Incident (2009), as well as the beloved 1993 romantic drama C’est la Vie, Mon Chéri, which swept six Hong Kong Film Awards including best film and best director. Wong previously worked below the line on a number of commercial Hong Kong productions, including I Am Somebody, Sword Master and In Search of Lost Time.
The festival also unveiled the full jury rosters for its Golden Goblet Awards across five competitive sections. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, previously announced as the main competition jury president, will preside over a seven-member panel that includes Chinese director Guan Hu, whose Black Dog took the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2024; Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha, a prominent figure in North African cinema; Georgian writer-director Déa Kulumbegashvili, whose feature April debuted in competition at Venice in 2024; Mexican filmmaker Fernanda Valadez, winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance in 2020; Kyrgyz director Aktan Arym Kubat, a veteran of the international circuit; and Chinese actress Xin Zhilei, who took the best actress prize at Venice last year for The Sun Rises on Us All.
The Asian New Talent section is headed by Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, best known for his 2013 Camera d’Or winner Ilo Ilo. The documentary jury is chaired by U.S. filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir, Oscar-nominated for The Perfect Neighbor and The Devil Is Busy. And British animator Will Becher, beloved for A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, chairs the animation section.
