The world premiere of Macau-produced film, Ina And The Blue Tiger Sauna, directed by António Caetano de Faria and Bernardo Rao, is being held this evening, December 6 at 7:15 pm at Macau Tower, as part of the International Film Festival and Awards Macao (IFFAM).
A noir thriller about the dark side of Macao, Ina And The Blue Tiger Sauna takes the audiences into the world of gangsters and prostitution just after the financial crisis of 2008.
The film was shot in Macau, it is produced by local director Tracy Choi in partnership with Kelvin Lam, the film stars young experienced and non-experienced actors and actresses from Macau, as well as two renown Hong Kong actors Li Feng and Macau-raised Kam Kwok Leung, who has also been part of Empire Hotel, by director Ivo Ferreira. Macanese António Vale da Conceição produced the original film’s soundtrack.
“We tried using the homegrown talent to show in the festival that people here are trying to work and make movies with quality that can attract attention and be sold abroad. We want to attest that these movies can also generate revenue, so we can continue producing films”, António Caetano de Faria said to Macau News Agency (MNA).
António Caetano de Faria explained that from the very beginning of the project, the goal was to make a commercial feature that could play well on the International film market.
At this stage the American film distributor Montecristo International is submitting the feature to Berlin International Film Festival, to the Panorama section, Faria added.
The project started in 2014, following an invitation from local filmmaker Alberto Chu to Faria to participate in the short-film series, Macau Stories III. Therefore the feature started as a short, called Ina, launched in 2015.
Ina And The Blue Tiger Sauna is António Caetano de Faria first narrative feature. He won the Macao Indies Jury Award twice for his feature documentaries Time Travel (2011) and Into The Void (2013).
Bernardo Rao has created award-winning independent short films, music videos for bands such as Fat Freddie’s Drop and commercials for companies such as ANZ, Flight Centre and MOJO. His feature credits are The Baldlands (2015) and Killer Sofa (2019).
Ina And The Blue Tiger Sauna film script was written by both directors. The film was produced with a grant sponsored by the Cultural Industry Fund, added the director.
By Cláudia Aranda
