China has a strong presence at the 2007 Rotterdam film festival

HONG KONG (AP) - The 2007 Rotterdam film festival will have a strong Chinese presence, with organizers honouring Hong Kong director Johnnie To and naming mainland filmmaker Lou Ye a member of the jury. To has been named "filmmaker in focus," and the festival will show his recent gangster film series "Election" and "Election 2," as well as "Heroic Trio" - a movie that festival organizers say in a statement on their website "cemented To's reputation in the West."

Meanwhile, Chinese director Lou will serve on the jury for the Tiger Awards, as the Rotterdam Festival's prizes are known. Lou won a Tiger in 2000 with his feature debut "Suzhou River."

Lou has recently drawn attention because China's Film Bureau banned him from making movies for five years after he screened his new film, "Summer Palace," at the Cannes Film Festival in May without approval.

The movie uses as a backdrop China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, which killed at least hundreds of people.

"Suzhou River," a quirky tale about a courier's obsession with a young girl, also failed to clear Chinese censors.

Lou has said he plans to defy the ban.

The 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam will take place Jan. 24 to Feb. 4.

Two Chinese-language films - Tan Chui Mui's "Love Conquers All" and Guo Xiaolu's "How Is Your Fish Today?" - have been shortlisted for the Tiger Awards. Both are feature debuts for their directors.

"Love Conquers All," about a woman who's confused about her feelings after moving to the big city, won the award for best new Asian filmmaker at South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival in October.

The movie was backed by Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund.

Festival organizers said Guo's "How Is Your Fish Today?" portrays "the dreamlike voyage of a scriptwriter to the snow-covered Chinese-Russian border region."

Asian filmmakers were major recipients of the Hubert Bals Fund's digital production grant this year.

Filipino Khavn De La Cruz received funding for "Mondomanila: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey," a movie set in Manila. Malaysian Ho Yu Hang won for "At The End of the Daybreak," about an Internet romance gone bad.

Ho's countryman Liew Sang Tat will be backed for "In What City Does It Live?" The film tackles superstition and racism in a small Muslim village.

Chinese director Wang Liren is another grant winner for "Weed," about a shy young man's courtship of a prostitute.

© The Canadian Press, 2006