The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Film Development Council:
The local premiere of a new film subsidised by the Film Production Grant Scheme (FPGS) under the Film Development Fund (FDF), "Zombiology: Enjoy Yourself Tonight", will be held this evening (June 29). The production budget for the film was around $9.9 million, with the government subsidy amounting to about $1.98 million.
The film is the first feature film directed by Alan Lo, and stars Louis Cheung, Michael Ning, Venus Wong and Cherry Ngan. The thriller depicts how two young men, who are determined to protect the earth, fight against violent zombies during an outbreak of a zombie virus in Hong Kong.
The Secretary-General of the Hong Kong Film Development Council, Mr Wellington Fung, said, "This is the first released film subsidised by the FPGS. The theme is innovative and most of the crew members are local up-and-coming filmmakers. I believe that the film, which is full of Hong Kong elements, should appeal to local movie-goers.
"We will continue to encourage more quality film productions through the FDF and to provide more opportunities for newcomers to show their creativity and produce more films that can resonate with audiences."
The FPGS was launched under the FDF in November 2015 to subsidise small-budget film productions (Note) with a grant at 20 per cent of the approved production budget or actual production cost (whichever is lower) with a cap of $2 million per film project. Since the launch of the scheme, five applications have been approved with total funding of about $9.28 million.
Note: The production budget limit will be raised from $10 million to $13 million with effect from the eighth quarter (submission deadline on August 31, 2017) while the subsidy cap will remain the same.