Angela Yuen built a breakout out of a single pandemic year. She modeled while studying accounting at Hong Kong Baptist University, became widely known through a 2015 Maxim's commercial, and turned to acting soon after. Christopher Doyle cast her in The White Girl (2017), the fishing-village fable he co-directed, opposite Joe Odagiri, and she drew wider notice in Little Q (2019). Then 2022 brought three releases at once: the comedy Chilli Laugh Story, the family drama Hong Kong Family, and Lam Sum's The Narrow Road, in which she plays Candy, a free-spirited single mother taking cleaning work through locked-down Hong Kong opposite Louis Cheung. That performance earned her Best Leading Actress nominations at the 59th Golden Horse Awards and the 41st Hong Kong Film Awards. She has scarcely left the screen since, with leads across film and series in Hong Kong and Taiwan. NYAFF presents Yuen with the Screen International Rising Star Award and screens two of her new films, Afterpiece and Gamer Girls, with the actress in attendance.

Keane T. K. Wong graduated from the Film Program at the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University, and built his craft in production and post-production, working on I Am Somebody (2015), Sword Master (2016), and In Search of Lost Time (2022). He arrives at NYAFF with Afterpiece, starring Screen International Rising Star honoree Angela Yuen, one of two films at this year's festival led by the Hong Kong actress. He attends the screening in person, joining the festival's Hong Kong contingent for the 25th edition