In less than two weeks, China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will host the 4th International Film Festival & Awards. Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche will take part as a talent ambassador. This year, the festival will feature a special movie section, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Macao SAR, starring only local movies.

Binoche will join two other ambassadors: Hong Kong actress Carina Lau, and K-pop performer and actor Kim Junmyeon (Suho).

In a press release, the organizing committee noted that extending the star-studded line-up from Asian to international film circles will further widen the publicity coverage of the festival.

"IFFAM's main mission is to showcase the best of world cinema, and there is nobody more representative of what that means than Juliette Binoche," said Mike Goodridge, the festival's artistic director.

"She is a truly global actress, one of the world's finest, and continues to push herself in exciting new directions with every film choice," noted Goodridge.

The French actress will be attending the premiere of the movie "The Truth" on the evening of December 9, in which she stars. Celebrated Japanese film director Hirokazu Kore-eda directs the film. In the afternoon of the same day, she will join famed Chinese film director Diao Yinan for an inspirational dialogue. On the next day, she will take part in the Awards Ceremony.

The acclaimed French actress starred in more than 60 English and French films, winning several industry awards, for example, the Cesar Award for Best Actress and the Best Actress Prize in the Venice Film Festival for her performance in the "Three Colours: Blue." Later in 1997, her role as Hana in the "The English Patient" resulted in three prestigious accolades: The Silver Bear for Best Actress in the Berlin International Film Festival; the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Film Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role; and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Binoche was also the first actress to win the European "Triple Crown" with three best actress awards at the Berlin, Cannes, and Venice film festivals for her participation in "Certified Copy" by Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami.

Macao SAR 20th anniversary cinematic celebration

In the year that the Macao Special Administrative Region celebrates its 20th anniversary, the festival will include a commemorative category with five locally produced movies. Young directors and producers from Macao have been showing a bigger interest in the event and the organization also aims to expand opportunities for them to showcase their work on an international level.

This year's festival features "Ina and the Blue Tiger Sauna," by Antonio Caetano de Faria and Bernardo Rao; "Let's Sing," by Keo Lou; "Patio of Illusion," by Shangshi Chen; "String Of Sorrow," by Oliver Fa; and the anthology film comprised of nine short films "Years of Macao."

"Years of Macao" is set in different years and locations in Macao over the last 20 years, starting in 2019 and going back to 1999, with contributions from nine directors.

See the gallery for a glimpse of Macao film productions

Acclaimed movies in competition 

The festival also includes the New Chinese Cinema category dedicated to outstanding films from Chinese-speaking territories, including "Better Days," by Derek Tsang; Xiaogang Gu's "Dwelling In The Fuchun Mountains" and Liang Ming's "Wisdom Tooth," all from the Chinese mainland. 

Johnny Ma's "To Live To Sing," previously selected for Cannes Director's Fortnight, also competes in this section alongside the American "Lucky Grandma," by Sasie Sealy (USA) and "Wet Season," directed by Anthony Chen, from Singapore.

The International Competition is comprised of 10 feature films: "Bellbird," "Bombay Rose," "Buoyancy," "Family Members," "Give Me Liberty," "Goldie," "Homecoming," "Lynn + Lucy," "Two of Us" and "Two/One."

The competition jury, who will award a 60,000 U.S. dollars prize to the best feature, is led by director and producer Peter Chan Ho-sun.

Non-competing categories like the Flying Daggers, dedicated to the latest styles of genre cinema, and World Panorama, with award-winning films from major festivals, return this year with 12 movies. In total, IFFAM will feature 50 films.

IFFAM will kick off on December 5 with the premiere of Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit." This dark humor comedy is centered around a lonely German boy who has Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. "It takes a brave film-maker to make a comedy around Adolf Hitler and life under his deeply unhilarious Third Reich, but Taika Waititi is just such a film-maker," reads the programmer's note.

The closing film, on December 10, is "I'm Livin' it" from Hong Kong director Hing Fan Wong. The story centers around Bowen, a former top-shot Hong Kong banker, who is now living in a 24-hour fast-food restaurant.