13th Asia Pacific Screen Awards Winners

Yesterday the 2019 APSA awards ceremony took place in Brisbane, Australia and as expected Palme d'Or winner and already collector of several prestigious awards, Parasite by Bong Joon Ho won top award.  Yes, this is the film that most of us expect to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film and unless something odd happens will get it.

By-the-way Parasite was one of the six APSA-winning films that are their countrie's submissions for consideration in that Oscars category. Other international feature film Oscars entries are Russia's Beanpole which was the only film to take two awards, best cinematography and best screenplay.  Australia's entry, Buoyancy won Best Youth Feature, Japan's Weathering With You won Best Animated Feature, Philippine's Veredict won Best Actress and fabulous Elia Suleiman's It Must Be Heaven, is Palestine's entry, won a special Jury Grand Prize. Also the Cultural Diversity Award winner Rona, Azim's Mother, was Afghanistan's 2018 Oscars entry.

The major upset was for So Long, My Son by Xiaoshuai Wang which got the most nominations, 6, and won not a single award. In total there were 37 films from 22 countries and areas of Asia Pacific with nominations, a selection that came from 289 films submited for current edition.

The 2019 Winners

Best Feature Film:  기생충 Gisaengchoong (Parasite), Bong Joon-ho, South Korea



Jury Grand Prize: It Must Be Heaven, Elia Suleiman, Palestine
Best Youth Feature Film: Buoyancy, Rodd Rathjen, Australia
Best Animated Feature Film:  天気の子 Tenki no Ko (Weathering With You), Makoto Shinkai, Japan
Best Documentary Feature Film:  Advocate, Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche, Israel

Achievement in Directing: Adilkhan Yerzhanov for A Dark, Dark Man, Kazakhstan
Achievement in Cinematography: Ksenia Sereda for Дылда Dylda (Beanpole), Kantemir Balagov Russia
Best Screenplay: Kantemir Balagov and Alexander Terekhov for Дылда Dylda (Beanpole), Kantemir Balagov, Russia

Best Performance by An Actress: Max Eigenmann in Verdict, Raymond Ribay Gutierrez
Best Performance by An Actor: Manoj Bajpayee in Bhonsle, Devashish Makhija, India

Cultural Diversity Award: Rona, Madar-e Azim (Rona, Azim's Mother), Jamshid Mahmoudi, Iran
Young Cinema Award (NETPAC and Griffith Film School): Sona Dhwandi Bhed Te Suchha Pahad (The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain), Ridham Janve, India

FIAPF Award for outstanding achievement in film in the Asia Pacific region to Katriel Schory, Israel

10th MPA APSA Academy Film Fund Recipients
The Fund, celebrating its 10th anniversary, was created to support the development of new feature film projects by APSA Academy members and their colleagues from the culturally diverse Asia Pacific region. The fund awards four development grants of US$25,000 annually, and is wholly supported by the MPA. In 2019, the four recipients are:

The Station by Delphine Garde-Mroueh and Nadia Eliewat, UAE and France
Reality Bites by Rachel Leah Jones, Israel and USA
Sweet Lips by Catherine Fitzgerald, New Zealand
I, The Song by Dechen Roder, Bhutan