The Asia Pacific Screen Awards has announced its nominations for the film year. The organization is in its 10th year -- and we should note that our own Glenn Dunks works for them behind the scenes. They basically cover the whole continent so that includes Asian countries, Australia, Russia, you name it. Their definition is loose enough that it even covers films with creative teams that qualify even if the film is a co-production made elsewhere. Their nomination procedure is elaborate -- 303 films from 43 countries were in the mix this year -- and whittled down throughout the year. The results are certainly a unique barometer of the region.
Cold of Kalandar, Turkey's Oscar submission, has 3 nominations
The nominations with commentary are after the jump...
Best Feature Film
Cold of Kalandar (Turkey)
Daughter (Iran)
Ember (Turkey / Germany)
Muhammad: The Messenger of God (Iran)
The Student (Russia)
Cold of Kalandar is Turkey's Oscar submission this year. It's reportedly a strong handsomely made slow burner about a struggling Turkish family, and it's done quite well on the festival circuit -- might they finally have an Oscar contender? Muhammad was Iran's submission last year.
Ember received 3 nominations including Best Actress
Achievement in Direction
Zeki Demirkubuz, Ember (Turkey / Germany)
Joon-ik Lee, The Throne (Korea)
Bi Gan, Kaili Blues (China)
Feng Xiaogang, I Am Not Madame Bovary (China)
Anurag Kashyag, Psycho Raman (India)
The Throne was South Korea's Oscar submission last year so as you can see the eligibility dates of film prizes all over the world are very inconsistent. Ember did very well in these nominations with 3 categories. It's a marital drama about a husband who is suspicious of his wife's relationship with his former boss for whom she works while he is away.
Best Screenplay
Yang Chao, Crosscurrent (China)
Mehran Kashini, Daughter (Iran)
Gurvinder Singh and Waryam Singh Sandhu, The Fourth Direction (India / France)
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara and Tomoyuki Takahashi, Happy Hour (Japan)
Leena Yadav and Supratik Sen, Parched (India / USA / UK)
Achievement in Cinematography
Cevahir Şahin and Kürşat Üresin, Cold of Kalandar (Turkey)
Gorka Gómez Andreu, House of Others (Georgia / Russia / Spain / Croatia)
Wang Tianxing, Kaili Blues (China)
Vittorio Storaro, Muhammad: The Messenger of God (Iran)
Jay Oza, Psycho Raman (India)
House of Others is an Oscar submission this year.
Indian men dominate the Best Actor category - three of the five nominations!
Best Performance by an Actor
Manoj Bajpayee, Aligahr (India)
Farhad Aslani, Daughter (Iran)
Dev Patel, Lion (Australia)
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Psycho Raman (India)
Song Kang-ho, The Throne (Korea)
Interesting that Dev Patel was nominated for Lion (just reviewed) out of so many countries submitting films and his limited screen time being in only half of his picture. There are three Indian actors nominated. Aligarh is about a man suspended from his job due to his sexual orientation so we assume this one will eventually travel since LGBT films tend to show up internationally eventually, at least on streaming or DVD.
Song Kang-ho, a very familiar face in American arthouses and one of South Korea's biggest movie stars also headlines this year's Oscar submission Age of Shadows - our review is coming soon. Final note: It's curious that Shahab Hosseini who won Best Actor at Cannes for the Iranian Oscar submission The Salesman is not among the nominees. Was the film not eligible here? .
Russia's Zoology
Best Performance by an Actress
Youn Yuh-jung, The Bacchus Lady (Korea)
Aslihan Gürbüz, Ember (Turkey / Germany)
Agrippina Steklova, Insight (Russia)
Hasmine Killip, Ordinary People (Philippines)
Natalia Pavlenkova, Zoology (Russia)
Zoology, about a woman who grows a tail (no, really) played at TIFF this year and was a finalist for Russia's Oscar submission. They went with a film called Paradise instead.
Cultural Diversity Award
The Bonfire (Russia)
Cold of Kalandar (Turkey)
The Dark Wind (Iraq / Qatar / Germany)
In the Last Days of the City (Egypt / UAE / UK /Germany)
Knife in the Clear Water (China)
We can't assume to know what this film award is about since the whole purview of these awards are multicultural covering dozens and dozens of countries. Curious.
Best Documentary
City of Jade (Myanmar /Taiwan)
Exile (Cambodia / France)
Snow Monkey (Australia)
Starless Dreams (Iran)
Under the Sun (Russia / Korea / Germany / Czech Republic / Latvia)
Rithy Panh who directed Exile, you'll recall, also won Cambodia its first Oscar nomination for his genius documentary The Missing Picture (2014). If you're on twitter you should follow him because he consistently posts really interesting historical photos sometimes movies specific.
Wolf and Sheep is the first film directed by an Afghan woman! A coproduction with Denmark (Scandinavian has a rich tradition of fine youth features)
Best Youth Feature
Breath (Iran)
The Quest (India)
The Trap (India)
Wolf and Sheep (Afghanistan / Denmark / France /Sweden)
The World of Us (Korea)
Wolf and Sheep is the reportedly the first feature ever directed by an Afghani woman (it is not related to Sheep and Wolves the animated feature nominated in the very next category). The World of Us is produced by Lee Chang-dong who is a favorite of APSA having won three of their prizes in the past
Best Animated Feature
Bilal (UAE / USA)
Manang Biring (Philippines)
Savva (Russia)
Seoul Station (Korea)
Sheep and Wolves (Russia)
We'd like to extend a very warm good luck and congratulations to the director of Manang Biring who is a longtime reader of The Film Experience! We'll be curious to see if any of these five titles are submitted for Oscar's Animated Feature race. They're always springing a foreign surprise or three in their long list of eligible titles. But then again their eligibility dates don't always align with Oscar. Japan's Miss Hokusai, for instance, won this prize last year at APSA but it will likely be on the Oscar long list this year for Animated Feature this year.