Japanese director Shunji Iwai was in town for a post-screening talk of his new film Kyrie, and to attend the Film Craft Workshop, co-organised by HKAFF and the Asian Film Awards Academy.

Iwai's new work was inspired by the trauma induced from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, in which he himself found the experience unforgettable, and was hoping to commemorate the incident through his film. Iwai mentioned that the background story of the male protagonist was written not long after the tragedy happened, and was a documentation of his own emotions. He was glad to be able to share his personal memories with this new film. Iwai also recalled working with musician Takeshi Kobayashi -- Kyrie being their third collaboration, the partnership has been really smooth and it was more like a reunion with an old friend. Fiinally, Iwai remarked on his casting of AiNA The END, the female lead of Kyrie, as "a beautiful coincidence"  -- Iwai stumbled upon the singer's online video one day and was blown away by her performance, therefore he decided that AiNA would be the best person to play the role of Kyrie.