Fred Tsui, the veteran Hong Kong sales executive and founder of Moebius Entertainment, has been appointed executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, the organization announced Friday.
Tsui will formally take up the post Sept. 23, succeeding Albert Lee, the former Emperor Motion Pictures CEO who has led the society since late 2018. Reporting to chairman Wilfred Wong and the board, Tsui will oversee the society’s various year-round activities: the flagship Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), the HAF Film Lab, the Summer International Film Festival and the repertory Cine Fan program.
The appointment comes amid a busy few weeks for Tsui at his day job. Moebius, the Hong Kong-based sales agency and festival consultancy he runs as founder and CEO, boarded worldwide sales this week on Michelle Zhou’s debut feature Big Little Things, just selected for the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, and recently picked up Taiwanese director Fiona Roan Feng-i’s Happily Ever After ahead of its world premiere in Toronto’s Special Presentations lineup.
A respected Hong Kong industry veteran, Tsui spent more than two decades at Media Asia Film — the legacy local studio perhaps best known for the Infernal Affairs franchise — rising to general manager and head of international sales and co-production, where he helped carry late-stage Hong Kong golden age cinema to the global marketplace. Earlier in his career, he held senior management roles at telecom and media group PCCW and broadcaster Asia Television. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Hong Kong’s Film Development Council, Tsui has served on festival juries from Sitges to Tallinn to Edinburgh, and has sat on the boards of the Independent Film & Television Alliance in the U.S. and Rome’s MIA market.
