The 10th Hong Kong - Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), to be held at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 19-21 March 2012, announced today a record number of 32 projects selected for HAF 2012 and hailing from 20 different territories including Australia, Armenia, China, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, The Phliippines, Slovakia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

Roger GARCIA, Executive Director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited, commented, "We are delighted by the eclectic selection and the considerable increase in submissions this year. These are encouraging signs of the HAF’s growing popularity and its importance to filmmakers in the region. It is no easy task to secure funds for a film project, and I hope HAF will continue to help realise a diversity of projects by bringing together professionals from the international film community involved in the development, production and marketing of films. We also highly value our partnership with other project markets including Copenhagen's DOX:LAB, New York’s Independent Filmmaker Project, and Paris Projects from France, which has effectively expanded our international networks and in turn enriched the range of filmmakers we aim to support."

The HAF 2012 project line-up features some prominent names, including China's GU Changwei, who won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival with his first feature Peacock. He will be presenting his new project Ready for War at the 10th HAF. Also joining is Iceland’s veteran filmmaker Fridrik Thor FRIDRIKSSON, whose Children of Nature was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1992 Academy Awards. He will bring his latest story Lost in Poetry to the forum. Meanwhile, TAN Chui Mui will come with Imperial Exam, a project produced by "Sixth Generation" director JIA Zhangke. Other well-known names include: Oscar winner Ruby YANG, who snared Best Documentary (Short Subject) with The Blood of Yingzhou District at the 2007 Academy Awards; South Korea's LEE Hae-jun, who won the Audience Award at the 2010 Udine Far East Film Festival with Castaway on the Moon; Hong Kong's enfant terrible PANG Ho-cheung, who was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival with Isabella; and Australia's Tony AYRES, whose The Home Song Stories garnered a total of 8 prizes at the 2007 Australia Film Institute Awards, including Best Direction and Best Screenplay.

This year’s HAF is also the first to include documentary projects. Among the 6 documentaries selected are (Un)making the Betrayal, Malaysia director Dain SAID's exploration of the ways cinema can collude with a totalitarian regime, and Music and the Nation by Hong Kong's CHEUNG King-wai, who expands his humanitarian concerns in the critically acclaimed KJ (2008) to address the impact of China’s market economy on the life of musicians.

Please click here for a complete list of all projects selected for the 10th HAF.