"A Separation" Wins Big at the Asian Film Awards

Congralutations to Andy Lau (representing Hong Kong's Oscar submission A Simple Life) and Eugene Domingo (the star of The Philippine's Oscar submission Woman in a Septic Tank) who won the People's Choice Award for Actor and Actress at the 6th Annual Asian Film Awards.

They look so happy. The Oscars are long over but somehow it's comforting to know that people hold new trophies every day of the year for something or other and not all of them are dreaming of Oscar. And not all awards bodies are concerned with whether or not Oscar voters are watching.

It was a big night for A Separation (which we were just talking about) which took home the top prize and three others. The craft categories were mostly split between Wu Xia and The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale, neither of which have come to US cinemas.

The acting awards were all over the place both in terms of films and countries.

The Winners
Film A Separation [Iran]
Director Asghar Farhadi, A Separation [Iran]
Actress Deanie Ip, A Simple Life [Hong Kong]
Actor Donny Damara, Lovely Man [Indonesia] 
Newcomer Ni Ni, The Flowers of War [China] 
Supporting Actress Shemaine Buencamino, Nino [The Philippines]
Supporting Actor Lawrence Ko Jump, Ashin! [Taiwan] 

Donny Damara plays a transgendered father in "Lovely Man"

Screenplay Asghar Farhadi, A Separation [Iran]
Cinematography Jake Pollock & Lai Yiu-fai Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong]
Production Design Yee Chung-man, Sun Li, Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong] 
Score Chan Kwong-wing, Peter Kam, Chatchai Pongprapaphan, Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong]
Editor Hayedeh Safiyari, A Separation [Iran]
Visual Effects Wook Kim, Josh Cole, Frankie Chung, The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale [China | Hong Kong ]
Costume Design Yee Chung-man, Lai Hsuan-wu The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale [China | Hong Kong] 

The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale hasn't come to the States yet but since it stars Jet Li and it's action oriented, I suppose we'll get it at some point.

Special Awards Lifetime Achievement for Hong Kong director Ann Hui and The Edward Yang New Talent Awards for Indonesia's Edwin. 

Oscar Submissions: Spain, Iran, Lebanon, Portugal, The Phillipines and Finland

This just in... well, actually it's been burning a whole in my inbox for a day or two. SPAIN, no stranger to Oscar glory with 19 nominations and 4 wins behind them, have narrowed their Oscar list down to 3 films.

It's a fairly standard choice facing Spain. They've got a Pedro Almodóvar film (The Skin I Live In), which automatically assures high profile discussions and viewers in the States even if the film isn't particularly Oscar-ready competing with a lesser known film which is more loved at home (Agustí Villaronga's Pa Negre or Black Bread) and a new film that not a lot of people have seen that hasn't even been released yet (Benito Zambrano's La voz dormida). The latter film is based on a novel and about women who were jailed during the Franco years. 

I'm guessing they go with Pa Negre (which translates to Black Bread) since it made such a very impressive showing at the Goyas this year taking Best Picture and eight more trophies along with it. The film is set in rural Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War and features Sergí Lopez (Pan's Labyrinth) and I hear that the child actors, one of whom discovers a dead body in the forest, are just great in it. I posted the trailer some months ago. [UPDATE 09/28/11: Yes, it was selected. See the Oscar Charts]

UPDATE: In confusing official and then not official but maybe possibly official eventually news...

IRAN (1 nomination) supposedly submitted Asghar Fahradi's A Separation, (pictured left) which is already an award winning film, a marital drama with a high international profile. Sony Pictures Classics will distribute. I immediately put it in my prediction list. But supposedly Iran wasn't happy that this news rushed out and it wasn't official official. Distinctions! So it might be A Separation but they're now considering Ahmad-Reza Motamedi's Alzheimer's, Bahram Tavakkoli's Here without Me, Ali-Reza Davoudnejad's Salve and Rambod Javan's No Men Allowed as well.

In more official news

FINLAND (1 nomination) has gone with Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre as everyone suspected wish is about a shoe shiner who befriends an immigrant. Kaurismäki gave Finland its only nomination with the dry funny The Man Without a Past some years back. 

LEBANON (never nominated) has submitted the musical that's now playing at TIFF, Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now? which is from the director of Caramel.

PORTUGAL (never nominated) will submit José & Pilar, which is a documentary by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes about the bestselling novelist José Saramago (Blindness) and his wife as well as the friction between private artists and their public lives. Sounds interesting. Guess what? Actor Gael García Bernal and director Fernando Meirelles (who were of course both involved in the Blindness film adaptation) also appear in the film.

This just in...

THE PHILIPPINES (never nominated) are submitting Woman in a Septic Tank which sounds really interesting. I'm also in love with the poster.

It's a comedy about the making of a movie as three filmmakers meet in Starbucks, call on their lead actress (played by Eugene Domingo as both herself and the character in the movie) and plan their poverty drama's shoot which will take place in a garbage dump. The movie gets reinvented several times over and changes genres and form in their imaginations.