7th Asian Film Award Winners

A few hours ago the award ceremony spread out the wealth to several films but is Lou Ye's Mystery which won the top award and none other than Takeshi Kitano who won the Best Director for Outrage Beyond. Also worth mentioning is that Bahman Ghobadi's Rhino Season won several tech awards including Best Cinematography. Three great movies.

Winners are in *BLUE. To learn winners in all categories go official site.

1/31/13
On January 16th the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS) announced the nominees in the 14 categories honored by this award. From over a thousand eligible films across Asia, up to five nominations have been selected in each category. The full list of 70 nominees includes 30 films from 9 countries and regions. In terms of numbers, South Korea leads with 16 nominations this year.

The HKIFFS also announced that the first collaboration of AFA with Yahoo! Movies for The People’s Choice Awards. AFA’s nominees for Best Actor and Actress automatically become candidates in this section and voting is open to the public from around the world. The voting period will run from 6 February 2013 to 11 March 2013 on Yahoo! Movies.

Lou Ye's Mystery and Yun Jong-bin's Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time lead with six nominations each. The Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony will be held at the Grand Hall of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 18 March 2013.

Best Film
毒戰 Du zhan (Drug War), Johnnie To, Hong Kong and China
Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 & 2, Anurag Kashyap, India
*浮城謎事 Mystery, Lou Ye, China and France
Autoreiji: Biyondo (Outrage Beyond), Takeshi Kitano, Japan
Pieta, Kim Ki-duk, South Korea

Best Director
Anurag Kashyap for Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 & 2
Abbas Kiarostami for Like Someone in Love
Kim Ki-duk for Pieta
*Takeshi Kitano for Outrage Beyond
Lou Ye for Mystery

Best Actress
*Nora Aunor in Thy Womb
Cho Min-soo in Pieta
Golshifteh Farahani in The Patience Stone
Lun-Mei Gwei in GF*BF
Hao Lei in Mystery

Best Actor
Joseph Chang in GF*BF
Choi Min-sik in Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time
*Eddie Garcia in Bwakaw
Tony Leung Ka-fai in Cold War
Liu Ye in The Last Supper

Best Newcomer
Chien Man-Shu in When A Wolf  Falls in Love with a Sheep
Higashide Mashiro in The Kirishima Thing
Huang Yu-Siang in Touch of the Light
Kim Sung-kyun in Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time
*Qi Xi in Mystery

Best Screenwriter
Anad Gandhi for Ship of Theseus
Kiyasu Kohei and Yoshida Daihachi for The Kirishima Thing
*Mei Feng, Yu Fan and Lou Ye for Mystery
Wai Ka-fai, Yau Nai-hoi, Ryker Chan and Yu Xi for Drug War
Yoon Jong-bin for Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time

Best Cinematographer
*Touraj Aslani for Rhino Season
Choi Young-hwan for The Thieves
Rajeev Ravi for Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1 & 2
Yanagija Katsumi for Like Someone in Love
Zhang Li and Ma Cheng for The Last Supper

To learn nominations in other categories go here.  Was aware of all films but list remind me of those that haven't seen yet -have seen many- and definitively I'm looking forward to watch them.

Today was announced that the Excellence in Asia Cinema Award this year goes to Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng and Roger Garcia, Executive Director of HKIFFS says:

“We are delighted to honor Michelle with the Excellence in Asian Cinema Award this year. Michelle has an impressive career of over 30 movies. Her incredible talent has led her from action films in Hong Kong to international works like The Lady. Her work in Chinese language cinema has helped promote it to an international audience and the global film industry. Michelle has excelled as both an action star and a serious actress – a very rare combination in this business, and practically unique. She is the perfect choice to be awarded with this prestigious honor.”

Cheers!!!