Why go to a film festival that specializes in the sort of popular Asian genres — from Hong Kong actioners to South Korean comedies — that the other "better" sort of festivals have traditionally sniffed at?
Since 2000 I've been making an annual trek to the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) held in Udine, a small city in Italy's northeast corner, as the adviser for their Japanese film selections. So my answer to the aforementioned question is both professional and personal, if hardly objective. That is, I enjoy the messy business of putting together a program the Udine audience (as opposed to the critics and media types who also attend) will actually enjoy. And, yes, I do not have to pay for my nine-day stay (if not exactly a vacation) in a picture-postcard town with some of Italy's best white wine and most welcoming natives.
The 16th edition of the FEFF, held from April 25 to May 3 at Udine's 1,200-seat Teatro Nuovo. In all, 62 films from Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines were presented, though perhaps I should also add Australia to that list since that is the nationality of Andrew Leavold, the director of "The Search for Weng Weng." That film is an entertaining, obsessively researched documentary about a height-challenged Filipino actor who briefly flourished as an improbable international action star in the 1970s and '80s.