India’s Last Film Show, about a little boy who watches a movie for the first time and is instantly captivated by the light that comes out of a projector and the stories it tells, won the Snow Leopard Award for best film in the recently concluded 8^th Asian World Film Festival (AWFF).

The awards night, held November 18 at the Beverly Hills Saban Theater, feted the competition winners, and previously announced honorees in the festival, which ran from November 9 to 18 in Los Angeles.

HFPA member Janet R. Nepales, who presented, with her fellow feature film juror, director Pitof, the evening’s top winner, Last Film Show, said, “The best film encompasses everything we want to see in a great film – good storytelling, moving performances, technically appealing, visually intoxicating, and heartfelt connectivity to audiences. We received a lot of very good movies this year and it was a tough decision.

“But this film reminded us of why we love cinema. It reminded us of cinema’s ability to both enchant and inspire. It is a love letter to cinema, to light, and to life itself. The film is an ode to moviegoing as well as movie-making. It celebrates film and the cinematic experience.”

Last Film Show writer-director Pan Nalin received the Snow Leopard trophy for his semi-autobiographical movie, originally titled Chhello Show, an Indian Gujarati-language drama that stars Bhavin Rabari as Samay, a nine-year-old boy in a remote Indian village whose life changes when his father takes him to a movie theater.

 

 

Best actor and best actress awards went to Mohsen Tanabandeh (for Iran’s World War III) and Huifang Hong (for Singapore’s Ajoomma), respectively.

The feature film jury, which included, aside from Nepales and Pitof, Truong Ngoc Anh (president), Janet Hsieh, Jongman Kim, Arawinda Kirana, and Bryan Sipe, gave other awards.

World War III, Iranian filmmaker Houman Seyyedi’s thriller drama about a widower whose life as a day laborer drastically changes when he lands a movie role, garnered the special jury award.

For the first time, AWFF gave the best cinematography award and it went to Andreas Sinanos for his work on Turkey’s Kerr. Sinanos received a $60,000 Panavision camera grant. Armenia’s Aurora’s Sunrise, directed by Inna Sahakyan, won the Audience Award.

HFPA member Yong Chavez served as jury president of the scholarship short film competition which has been presented by HFPA for four years now in partnership with AWFF.

Chavez said in her announcement of Dania Bdeir (for Lebanon/France’s Warsha) as the recipient of the $5,000 HFPA scholarship best short award, “The Asian World Film Festival received entries from all over the world about different subjects and genres.

“The short films that my colleagues and jurors saw took us to outer space, San Gabriel Valley, remote, snowy terrain, a film set, a workplace high above the ground, and many other familiar and strange places and circumstances. This year’s entries show that oftentimes, a short film can deliver the most long-lasting impact.”

HFPA board director Yuki Nakajima presented the scholarship prize to Bdeir.

Chavez, along with her fellow short film jury members, Sam Kadi, C-Tru, Minnie Nguyen, Miyuki Matsunaga, and Long Nguyen, also honored the runner-up, Kyrgyzstan’s Burul, directed by Adilet Karzhoev, with the StarsCollective Emerging Filmmaker Award of $2,000.

Chavez remarked, “StarsCollective Emerging Filmmaker Award honors filmmakers and artists from diverse backgrounds and this year’s winner proves that our stories may be told in different languages but at the end of the day, there’s a universality in our desire to be resilient in the face of adversity.”

The short film jury also cited Amirhossein Khoshbin, the Director of Photography of Iran’s Deer, as the winner of the $15,000 Panasonic cinema grant.

Michele Sugihara, executive director of the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), one of HFPA’s grantees, announced the finalists for Tomorrow’s Filmmakers, AWFF’s initiative to recognize and support upcoming Asian filmmakers.

The ten finalists who will receive mentorship from Sugihara are Elizabeth Ai, Francis Ho, Yoo Seok Jong, Ella Manzheva, Minnie Nguyen,  Caylee So, Tanxuan Shi, Su Ching Teh, So Yun Um, and Yoo Seok Jong.

Honored by AWFF were previously announced awardees: Park Chan-wook (outstanding cinematic achievement), Albert S. Ruddy (lifetime achievement), Desmond Chiam (Rising Star), and Daniel Wu (Bruce Lee Award).

Also cited were Doctors Michael Dao and Linh Bui (Ladies Tiffany Circle American Red Cross Courage to Dream Award), Truong Ngoc Anh (Winn Slavin Humanitarian Award), Alan Vo Ford and Jenny Ai Trinh (One Heart Award), and Jennifer McCormick and Lani Netter (Angel Benefactor Award).

 

 

Actress-philanthropist Krista Kleiner and actor-writer Jeff Locker hosted the awards evening, which featured numbers by performers from various Asian communities.

Georges N. Chamchoum, who co-founded AWFF with Sadyk Sher-Niyaz and HFPA member Asel Sherniyazova, summed up this year’s successful edition of the festival:

“In this, our eighth annual AWFF, we have exemplified the good fortune of the number eight by screening an amazing bounty of cinematic riches. We exhibited feature and short films from more than 50 nations, and each, in their own way, was emblematic of the value of Asian voices to the industry and to audiences worldwide.”