The former operator of the government-owned Cinematheque•Passion, CUT, said in a statement yesterday that it will hold a film day on Sunday with live music, an exhibition and screenings of two short films – “This is not the end” and “À bout de cinémathèque” (“At the end of cinémathèque”).
CUT, headed by local filmmaker Albert Chu Iao Ian, lost its bid to continue running the cinema near the Ruins of Saint Paul’s after its three-year contract with the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) ended.
CUT won the tender for commercial operation of the cinema four years ago with 24.95 million patacas. The bureau ran a fresh round of tendering, and CUT had the highest bid at 34.6 million patacas, an increase of 38.6 percent.
It lost out to Companhia de Produção de Entretenimento e Cultura that won the tender, offering to run the cinema for 15.2 million patacas for the three-year period, 56 percent lower than CUT’s bid. The new company will officially reopen the cinema with a film festival on Tuesday.
The CUT statement said that the event, titled “Keep Roll with CUT Film Day”, will take place at the Oriental Foundation – Casa Garden on Sunday, “specially curated for local film buffs”.
According to the statement, the event will begin with the opening of an “Exhibition on Film Aesthetic” in the ground floor gallery at 5 p.m., followed by “Macau Films Music Concert” in the garden at 7:30 p.m. to 8:10 p.m., after which there will be an outdoor screening of two short films at 9:30 p.m. to 10:10 p.m.
Directed by Hong Kong’s Chan Kam-hei, “This is not the end” tells the story of a 16-year-old who trains to be a hurdler despite his height limiting his performance. The 26-minute piece won Best Screenplay at the 14th Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival in Hong Kong recently.
The CUT statement said that “À bout de cinémathèque” was directed by local film curator Penny Lam Kin Kuan, with no further information provided about the film.
The screening will mark the Macau première of both films. The event is free of charge, and the exhibition runs until September 13.
