Oscar Contenders Stack the Decks at Asia Pacific Screen Awards

Glenn here. Rarely discussed by Oscar commentators for reasons unknown to me are the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Held annually on the Gold Coast in Australia, these awards recognise, well, cinema from Asian and Pacific regions. This year's batch of contenders are from a typically diverse group of nations with several high profile Oscar contenders in the mix. Amongst this year's roster of nominees are the foreign language submissions from Palestine (Omar), Iran (The Past), Saudi Arabia (Wadjda), China (Back in 1942), Hong Kong (The Grandmaster), Singapore (Ilo Ilo), New Zealand (White Lies), South Korea (Juvenile Offender) and Kazakhstan (The Old Man) as well as films amongst the long lists for animation (The Wind Rises) and documentary (The Art of Killing). Just imagine if Japan had chosen Like Father Like Son and India had chosen The Lunchbox!

Some history and this year's nominees after the jump.

The awards are only in their 7th year of existence, but already have quite a distinguished history of winners. A Separation, Secret Sunshine and my home country's Samson & Delilah have all won in the feature film category, while such world-renowned auteurs Lee Chang-dong, Brillante Mendoza and Nuri Bilge Ceylan have taken home directing honours. Furthermore, their list of actress winners is arguably a greater list than the Academy's across subsequent years: Kim Hye-ja (Mother), Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine), Yoon Jeong-hee (Poetry), Hiam Abbass (Lemon Tree) and Nadezhda Markina (Elena) should have all been better seen and better rewarded on the world stage.

So why are the APSAs so invisible amongst the Oscar landscape? There are more Oscar contenders amongst their nominees than, say, the European Film Awards, which we looked at just a few days ago. And there's surely more chance of Oscar success amongst the APSA crew than the British Independent Film Awards, which also announced their nominees today to more press (although both are richly to the left of most Academy-aping award ceremonies). I guess it all boils down to the Academy remaining awfully blind towards cinema without global stars (Zhang Ziyi is ready to cut a bitch for saying that!)

Anyway, check out the nominees and let us know what you think. And in case you're wondering, I believe An Act of Killing and The Past qualified due to their Asia/Pacific themes. Would definitely be interested in hearing from anybody else in that region - did your national favourites pick up any nominations?

Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh in 'The Turning'

Best Feature Film
Like Father, Like Son (Japan)
Omar (Palestine)
The Past (France/Italy)
Television (Bangladesh)
The Turning (Australia)
With You, Without You (Sri Lanka) 

Best Children's Feature Film
Juvenile Offender (Korea)
Leaving on the 15^th Spring (Japan)
Shopping (New Zealand)
Wadjda (Saudi Arabia)
When I Saw You (Palestine/Jordan)

Best Documentary Feature Film
The Act of Killing (Denmark/Norway/UK)
The Gatekeepers (Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Menstrual Men (Singapore/India)
No Burqas Behind Bars (Sweden/Japan/Netherlands/Denmark)
A World Not Ours (Lebanon, UK, UAE, Denmark, Palestine)

Best Animated Feature Film
The Fake (Korea)
Koo! Kin-Dza-Dza (Russia)
Patema Inverted (Japan)
The Wind Rises (Japan)
The World of Goopi and Bagha (India)

Achievement in Direction
Anthony Chen, Ilo Ilo
Emire Baigazan, Harmony Lessons
Hiner Saleem, My Sweet Pepperland
Hirokazu Kore-eda, Like Father, Like Son
Shahram Mokri, Fish and Cat

Infinitely watchable Adam Bakri in 'Omar'

Best Performance by an Actor
Aaron Pedersen, Mystery Road
Adam Bakri, Omar
Lee Byung-hun, Masquerade
Tatsuya Nakadai, Japan's Tragedy
Yerbolat Toguzakov, The Old Man

Best Performance by an Actress
Ayça Damgacı, Yozgat Blues
Golshifteh Farahani, My Sweet Pepperland
Negar Javaherian, The Painting Pool
Whirimako Black, White Lies
Zhang Ziyi, The Grandmaster 

Best Screenplay
Asghar Farhadi, The Past
Denis Osokin, Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Anisul Haque, Television 
Ritesh Batra The Lunchbox
U-Wei Bin Hajisaari, Almayer's Folly 

Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver in 'Tracks'

Achievement in Cinematography
Ehab Assal, Omar
Lu Yue, Back to 1942
Mandy Walker, Tracks
Murat Aliyev, The Old Man
Rajeev Ravi, Monsoon Shootout

Comments

[kin]

So weird to only see one overlap between picture and director. I wonder if Japan is having second thoughts about its Oscar submission considering the world-wide raves that Like Father, Like Son is having.

Yay Zhang ZiYi! Should have been in the Oscar conversation, but alas.

[Travis]

Oh, if only Japan had submitted LFLS, because it's high quality, but more because their actual submission, THE GREAT PASSAGE, is such a dire movie!

[Bette Streep]

Some interesting omissions and nominees.

Berenice Bejo and Mia Waskikowska have been mentioned as possible Oscar nominees and both were snubbed by the ASPSA. Especially surprising for Bejo since she won at Cannes for this role.

The Rocket is also being talked about as an Oscar nominee for Foreign Language film and this is missing in the ASPSA nominees.

Biggest surprise is the nomination for The Act of Killing. I thought only Asian-Pacific productions were eligible for the ASPAs and this doco is clearly an European production. Wonder what rules were stretched to allow this in.

I'm just surprised that the ASPAs are running again this year. Queensland has a new rightwing conservative government that is slashing funding to many arts projects so wonder how the ASPAs got funding to continue.

[Glenn]

Bette, as I noted, I think KILLING was allowed because its not only about Indonesia, but it might have a heavy contingent of Indonedian crew? I'm not entirely, but given its region specifity I can see how it would be allowed in.