Miss Kicki has been selected to compete in the Flash Forward section of the Pusan International Film Festival. The festival is the foremost of its kind in Asia, and the Flash Forward section features works by newcomers from outside the region.
Pernilla August in Håkon Liu's film Miss Kicki. Photo: Wu Chi-wei
Miss Kicki is a drama about a complex mother-son relationship. Kicki and her son Viktor are trying to patch up the years lost between through a holiday to Taiwan. But what Viktor doesn't realise is that his mother's real reason for the trip is to meet Mr Chang, a businessman she has met via the Internet.
Håkon Liu's debut feature as a director, Miss Kicki is the first ever film collaboration between Scandinavia and Taiwan. The screenplay was written Alex Haridi especially for Pernilla August. The third film to emerge from the Swedish Film Institute, Swedish Television and Film i Väst's 'Rookie' project, Miss Kicki was produced by Lizette Jonjic at Migma Film in partnership with the Taiwanese company Ocean Deep Films. The film will go on release in cinemas in Taiwan in December 2009 and in Sweden during the spring of 2010.
Miss Kicki was granted production funding by the Rookie Film-commissioner Andrea Östlund.
"The film was 90 per cent shot in Taiwan, and for a half Chinese director like me it's amazing to have the world premiere of a Swedish film at Asia's hottest film festival," says Håkon Liu.
Born in 1975, Håkon Liu graduated from the Göteborg School of Film Directing in 2004. With his film Lucky Blue he won the short film prize at the Göteborg Film Festival in 2007 and was nominated for a Guldbagge award. He has also directed the short film Kär i natten and a number of episodes of the Swedish television series Habib.
The title role is played Pernilla August, twice winner of a Guldbagge award and winner of the Best Actress award at the 1992 Cannes festival for The Best Intentions. Her son in the film is played by feature-film newcomer Ludwig Palmell, and her son's friend by Huang He River, who won Best Actor at the 2007 Golden Bell Awards in Taiwan for the Taiwanese television series Dangerous Mind. The businessman Mr Chang is played by one of the most prolific of all Chinese actors, Eric Tsang, veteran of more than 170 films since his 1974 debut, and twice winner of a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor.
In Pusan Håkon Liu will also be taking part in the European Film Promotions' special delegation, which comprises talented European directors and actors.
South Korea's 14th Pusan International Film Festival runs from 8-16 October.
For contact with Håkon Liu or others associated with the film, please contact Ylva Swedenborg ylva@cinemasweden.com or +46 708-98 38 48.
For questions about the festival, contact Pia Lundberg, head of the International Department at the Swedish Film Institute pia.lundberg@sfi.se +46 8-665 11 39