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 Somehow Rave’s TIM MILFULL managed to sneak in as one of the 550 ‘luminaries’ attending the 4TH ANNUAL ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS on the Gold Coast last week. Here’s what he found out.
Since 2007, UNESCO and the Queensland state government have been sponsoring an alternative to the Academy Awards, probably the most well-known film gongs in the Western world. When Hollywood’s glitterati turn out to celebrate and backslap each other, they offer very few chances to a few billion other cinema lovers to laud their own great films. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards are meant to remedy this shortcoming, especially given their purview takes in more than seventy countries, four billion people, and in 2010, a competition considering 239 entries. The APSA Jury this year was headed by Lord David Putnam – who produced classics such as The Killing Fields and Chariots of Fire – and apparently had considerable difficulty in their judgement, given the high quality of the shortlist they were working with.
Respected Korean filmmaker, Lee Chang-dong – already an APSA Award-winner for Secret Sunshine and A Brand New Life – took out a number of awards this year, including Best Achievement in Directing for his film, Poetry (Shi) about an elderly woman coping with dementia. Poetry also garnered Best Performance by an Actress for Yun Jung-hee, and Lee Chang-dong walked away with one of four $25,000 script development prizes awarded by the Motion Picture Association and APSA. The highest-grossing film in Chinese cinema, Aftershock, directed by Xiaogang Feng, also picked up a couple of APSAs, with Chen Daoming earning the Best Actor prize. The story of the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which took the lives of almost a quarter of a million people, offered a very moving premise for Xiaogang and obviously touched the hearts of China’s audiences, taking in more than $100 million at the Chinese box office.
Still in China, Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home was awarded Best Documentary Feature, for the fascinating story of the annual migration of more than 130 million people as they head home for Chinese New Year. This powerful film focused on the experiences and anguish of the Zhang family over four years, as they struggle to support each other and maintain their relationships. It might seem like China was a popular source of films this year, and you’d be right for assuming so, because the Best Animated Feature also came from there, much to the delight of a very enthusiastic official delegation from the People’s Republic. Piercing I, produced by Lynne Wang, and written, directed, and animated by Liu Jian, tells the gruelling story of one man’s efforts to come to terms with the personal effects of the global financial crisis on the economy of mainland China.
Other films to win APSAs in 2010 include Best Screenplay and a Screen International Grand Jury Prize for Samual Maoz’s very confronting Lebanon, about an inexperienced Israeli tank crew sent into combat in 1981, and another Jury Grand Prize awarded to Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima for her outstanding performance in the Second World War film, Caterpillar.
The 4th annual APSA Ceremony took place at the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre on Thursday Dec 2. For more information about the winners, nominees, and the awards themselves, visit www.asiapacificscreenawards.com
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