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Oliver Laxe’s Sirat has divided opinion on Screen International’ s Cannes jury grid, receiving an average score of 2.5.

The family drama about a father, played by Sergi Lopez, searching for his missing daughter in Morocco, collected scores of four (excellent) from Justin Chang, Ahmed Shawky, Kong Rithdee and The Telegraph duo Robbie Collin and Tim Robey, as well as two threes (good).

Dragging the average down however was a zero (bad), from Die Zeit’s Katja Nicodemus, as well as ones (poor) from Peter Bradshaw and Mathieu Macheret.

Click on the image above for the most up-to-date version of the grid.

Exclusive: Thai sales company Diversion is ramping up its production slate with a trio of titles supported by the new Thai film fund launched through the Thailand Creative Culture Agency (Thacca).

Venice-winning director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s latest film The Burning Giants, now in production on the Thai-Myanmar border, is about an ethnic Karen man with bizarre burn marks all over this body, who is captured by the Thai authorities and sent to a quarantine facility by a patrol unit from the Thai forestry department.

The project is established as a co-production with Singapore’s 13 Little Pictures, France’s Nord-Ouest...

Screen Internationalcan reveal the critics participating in this year’s jury grid at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).

JoiningScreen’s reviewing team will be critics from 11 international outlets to give their verdict on the 21 films in Competition this year for the Palme d’Or.

This year’s critics are all returners to the jury grid.

The results of the jury grid will be published inScreen’s Cannes daily magazines as well as live updates on screendaily.com.

The 2025 Cannes jury grid critics are: Nt Binh -Positif, France Robbie Collin / Tim Robey –The Telegraph, UK Katja Nicodemus –Die Zeit, Germany Ben Kenigsberg –Rogertebert.

Liu Xing’s Hong Kong-China co-production Say My Name and Gong Yiwen’s mainland China production Her First Taste were both presented with Wip Awards in the works-in-progress section of this year’s Hkiff Industry projects market.

Say My Name also won the White Light Post-Production Award and was one of five winners in the Haf Goes to Cannes program.

In Hkiff Industry’s In Development section, the two Idp Awards went to Waves Under The Sea, a co-production between Hong Kong, China and Macau, directed by Chan Sileong, and Drive South Pray West, co-directed by Thailand’s Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee.

Both the Idp and Wip sections give out two awards – one to a Hong Kong project, including co-productions with Hong Kong, and the other to a project from outside Hong Kong. All four awards come with a cash prize of $12,800.

The Idp Awards and Wip Awards...

In a sweeping move to champion Asian cinema, Chanel’s Culture Fund is making waves across Hong Kong and Thailand, uniting Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton and Palme d’Or recipient Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a landmark collaboration.

In Hong Kong, the initiative includes Chanel’s partnership with M+ museum is spearheading a restoration program under the guidance of Silke Schmickl, Chanel lead curator of moving image, who will oversee the M+ Moving Image Centre’s collections, commissions and curatorial programs. The project will restore nine Hong Kong New Wave films, with three premiering at major international festivals in 2025: T’ang Shushuen’s “The Arch” (1968), Peter Yung’s “The System” (1979) and Patrick Tam’s “Love Massacre” (1981).

“It always occurs to me that there’s no such thing as an old film, because what cinema is, is the present, so you can look at a film that was created in 1923, and you are right there,...

Hong Kong International Film Festival Society has announced the 25 in-development projects selected for this year’s Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf). The line-up includes several projects produced by high-profile filmmakers, including Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, India’s Aditya Vikram Sengupta and French producer and writer Sylvie Pialat.

Kore-eda is producing Yellow, the feature debut of Yamaura Miyoh, about a man who lives a life of self-punishment after a fatal car accident. Sengupta is producing Niladri Mukherjee’s debut Republic Of Mahalaxmi Apartment, which examines India’s majority rule issues through a single-mother tenant who becomes her housing estate’s public enemy when she flags a malfunctioning elevator.

Pialat (Les Miserables) is teaming with Chinese producer Nai An on Hu Wei’s feature debut, 49 Days, about a divorced Chinese couple who reunite in Paris to arrange their son’s funeral and confront their past.

Screen International can reveal the critics participating in this year’s jury grid at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).

Joining Screen’s reviewing team will be critics from 11 international outlets to give their verdict on the 22 films in Competition this year for the Palme d’Or.

This year’s critics are all returners to the jury grid with the exception of Nt Binh who replaces Michel Ciment for France’s Positif. Ciment passed away in November last year at 85 and was a long-time contributor to the jury grid.

The selection also includes Justin Chang for The New Yorker who...

South Korea’s Redice Entertainment, creator of hit webtoon Solo Leveling, has invested in Thai horror The Cursed Land as the company moves to extend activities outside its home market.

Redice Entertainment CEO Woogy Han and Neramitnung Film CEO Kanogwan Watchara signed an investment agreement in Bangkok on Thursday (March 7). It marks the first major outside investment in a Neramitnung Film production, which has previously fully financed its own titles.

“We see immense potential in Thai films, particularly within the horror genre,” said Han. “Genre films like The Cursed Land have a widespread appeal worldwide, presenting us with significant opportunities for growth.

Set in the early 2000s, Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee's “The Cursed Land” distills Thailand's political and ethnic tensions into a thrilling, time-hopping horror film. In locating their film within the vernacular beliefs of a Muslim community, the two directors expand the horizons of Thai horror cinema, traditionally rooted in Buddhist cosmology to instead capture Thailand's historical specters up in a bottle while also indulging in all the conventional pleasures and horrors of the haunted house genre effort which is now screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The Cursed Land Screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam

After the death of his wife, plant worker Mit (Ananda Everingham) moves with his teenage daughter May (Jennis Oprasert) to a derelict mansion in a Muslim-majority suburb of Bangkok. A thorough skeptic, Mit gets rid of the talismans in the house, defying the warnings of locals Heem (Bront Palarae) and Zainab (Seeda...

Six Chinese-language genre projects have been unveiled by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, which has partnered with talent agency CAA China on an initiative to develop fresh titles.

Titled Hkiff Industry - CAA China Genre Initiative (shortened as Hcg), the scheme will showcase the projects to an industry audience at Filmart and the Hong Kong - Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf), which runs March 11-13.

The selection includes Call Of Lobster, directed by Yin Chen-Hao and produced by Cheng Wei-Hao and Jin Pai-Lunn, who previously worked together on Taiwanese smash hit Man In Love. This comedy drama is...

Chinese superstar actor and producer Fan Bingbing will be the 2023 recipient of the Singapore International Film Festival’s (Sgiff) Cinema Icon Award.

The festival will screen three of Fan’s films, curated by her – the recent “Green Night,” “Buddha Mountain” and “Double Xposure” – and the star will walk the red carpet on opening night, Nov. 30. As previously announced, Malaysian Cannes winner and Oscar contender “Tiger Stripes” will open Sgiff.

The Cinema Icon Award and the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) Award are being reintroduced. They were last part of the Sgiff Silver Screen Awards in 2019 and 2006 respectively. Past winners of the Icon Award include Michelle Yeoh (Malaysia), Simon Yam (Hong Kong), Koji Yakusho (Japan), Joan Chen (U.S./China) and Yao Chen (China).

This year, the outstanding contribution to Southeast Asian cinema award is awarded to White Light Post in recognition of its award-winning achievements in post-production work.

The...

Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee make their directorial fiction feature debut on The Cursed Land, a Thai movie that’s hitting the Cannes market this week.

Screen Daily reports, “WME Independent is handling international sales at Cannes.”

“The film follows a widower and his daughter who travel to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a Muslim witch doctor after unleashing a djinn in a rundown house.”

Ananda Everingham (Shutter), Bront Palarae (Satan’s Slaves: Communion) and Jennis Oprasert (Where We Belong) star in The Cursed Land.

Screen Daily details, “Shooting wrapped last week on the film, which was mostly shot in Narathiwat province and the adjacent rainforest, Hala-Bala Wildlife Sanctuary.”

The post ‘The Cursed Land’ – Thai Horror Movie Consults a Witch Doctor After Unleashing a Djinn appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

WME Independent is handling international sales on the film at Cannes.

Ananda Everingham, Bront Palarae and Jennis Oprasert have been revealed as the cast of Thai horror The Cursed Land, on which WME Independent is handling international sales at Cannes.

Written and directed by Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee as their directorial fiction feature debut, the film follows a widower and his daughter who travel to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a Muslim witch doctor after unleashing a djinn in a rundown house. A first look at Ananda in the film can be seen above.

Ananda is...

Horror and action titles include ’The Cursed Land’ and a sequel to ‘The Bridge Curse’.

Nascent US sales outfit WME Independent has swooped on five genre features from Southeast Asia and Taiwan, and is launching pre-sales at the Marché.

The deals were brokered by Singapore-based Nelson Mok, WME’s director, advisory, film group, who is in talks with international buyers in Cannes.

The titles include Thai horror The Cursed Land, co-directed by Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee, which follows a widower who travels to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a witch doctor. Producer is Nonzee Nimibutr, whose credits include Nang Nak.

Colleen Kwok’s “The Stars The Sun The Moon” won the top prize for a Hong Kong-produced in-development project at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. Mainland Chinese title “Not Found” by Huang Ningwei won the equivalent prize for the best non-Hong Kong project.

A total of 14 prizes were announced at a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, with “Silent Ghosts,” another local project, directed by Hang Yeng, collecting the top work in progress award.

Haf organizers said that this year’s online platform hosted more than 900 private meetings between filmmakers and potential backers, a figure that was almost double the level of activity in 2020, when Covid forced the project market into a virtual format for the first time.

The third time it has been staged remotely, Haf this year hosted 43 projects, including 15 works-in-progress. There were also 11 Hong Kong projects, with 21 filmmakers presenting their debut feature projects. The event ran for three...

Winners revealed at virtual Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum.

Yang Heng’s Silent Ghosts was awarded the Works-in-Progress prize at the close of this year’s virtual Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum.

The Hong Kong fantasy drama was chosen from 15 projects presented this week at Haf, which took place online for the third time this year due to ongoing pandemic restrictions.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Selected for its “originality and creativity,” the project received a cash award of $12,800. Produced by Yan Ni for No Chopsticks Pictures, the story centres on a tourist who follows the trail of...

Leading indie film project market, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum has revealed a selection of 28 titles for its twentieth edition and confirmed that it will be held online for the third time in a row.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our 20th anniversary by hosting our usual in-person event due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions,” Hkiff industry director Jacob Wong said. “Nevertheless, based on experience gained from the last two years, we will strive to improve our online booking and meeting system to make it a breeze for all participants.”

The market will operate March 14-16, 2022, alongside the 26th edition of rights market Hong Kong FilMart (March 14-17.)

The market contains a familiar mix of experienced hands and newcomers. Among the well-established producers and directors with projects selected are: Huang Ji (2021 Rotterdam festival winner “Egg and Stone”); Hong Kong’s Jun Li...

The selection includes eight Hong Kong projects and the first-ever Thai-Muslim horror

The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf) has announced 28 in-development projects for its 20th anniversary edition.

All are fiction projects, including eight from Hong Kong, 12 debut features and projects spearheaded by renowned filmmakers and producers including Huang Ji, Jun Li, Tetsuya Mariko, Ida Panahandeh, Michael J. Werner, Fruit Chan, Nonzee Nimibutr, Yang Chao and Jane Zheng.

For the third year in a row, Haf will run online from March 14-16 alongside the 26th edition of Hong Kong Filmart.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our...

After his feature “Mindfulness and Murder” (2011), Thai director Tom Waller found his next project in the form of an obituary in a local newspaper. The announcement was about the death of Chavoret Jaruboon, something of a celebrity in Waller’s home country, since he was the last executioner carrying out death sentences via firing squad. When Thailand’s government abolished death by firing squad in 2003, Jaruboon also resigned. Since his formal appointment to the position in 1984, he had been responsible for 55 executions, all of which were carried out with him shooting the prisoner with a mounted machine gun. In the years until his death, he was a regular guest on TV shows and wrote books about his time as executioner.

Interestingly, the study of former executioners such as Jaruboon provides many noteworthy aspects for the discussion about the necessity of capital punishment in general. In an article about Albert Pierrepoint,...

The Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) returns for its 32nd edition from 25th November to 5th December 2021, with a call for entries for Feature Films from Asian and Short Films from Southeast Asian, as well as a call for applications for the Southeast Asian Film Lab and Youth Jury & Critics Programme. For the first time ever, Sgiff will have an open call for applications for its Southeast Asian Producers Network Programme this year. Since its inception in 2017, participants were invited to be part of the Southeast Asian Producers Network.

Under Sgiff’s Film Academy, the region’s first holistic training initiative for Southeast Asian film talents, the Southeast Asian Producers Network was a by-invitation-only programme that identified producers from the region to share their wealth of knowledge and information with one another in an open exchange of ideas. The network is a platform for further dialogue and opportunities for collaboration.

After weeks of awards campaigning and hundreds of interviews, “Parasite” began Sunday as a successful and well-appreciated movie. Yet its Academy Awards wins for best picture and for Bong Joon Ho as best director were shocks that thrilled the Asian movie industry.

“I’m so happy for all the Asian Film industry. It has now created bigger dreams for Asian filmmakers,” said Korean producer Jonathan Kim. “Now I have a different view on Hollywood. Even Hollywood is becoming more open minded.”

“Game changer!!! So happy for all of us. The Asians have finally arrived in Hollywood!” said Andrew Ooi, president of Echelon Talent Management, a Vancouver-based management firm with a predominantly Asian clientele.

Park Chan Wook, one of South Korea’s top filmmakers and a producer of Bong’s “Snowpiercer,” said in an interview with local media that the Oscar success of “Parasite” is not a surprise.

“[This] means that American...

New international appointments include a selection committee and programme consultants.

UK documentary festival Sheffield Doc/Fest has completed its international artistic team for the 2020 edition, with a senior programmer, selection committee and programme consultants among the new staff.

The they will report to incoming festival director Cíntia Gil, who was appointed in July after seven years as festival director of DocLisboa in Portugal.

Adam Cook will lead the film programming for Doc/Fest as senior programmer. His most recent role was as founding curator of Canadian independent cinema strand Future//Present at Vancouver International Film Festival, while his previous jobs...

Sheffield Doc/Fest director Cíntia Gil, who joined the UK doc event this year after a stint running Portugal’s Doclisboa, has rounded out her selection team. In total, 60% of the team are women.

Adam Cook will lead the film programming team and will be joined by Agnès Wildenstein who is associate programmer. On the selection committee are: Christopher Small, who will also curate Doc/Fest’s 2020 retrospective, Onyeka Igwe, Qila Gill, Rabz Lansiquot, Melanie Iredale (who is also the event’s deputy director and was interim director for the 2019 edition before Gil joined), Patrick Hurley (who has been the Director of Marketplace & Talent at Sheffield Doc/Fest since 2017), and Mita Suri, who is the film programme coordinator. Joining them are consultants from Brazil (Juliano Gomes), the Middle East (Danielle Arbid), Russia (Boris Nelepo), Southeast Asia (Kong Rithdee) and Japan (Yu Shimizu).

Elsewhere, Joe Cutts will lead the festival’s Alternate Realities programmes,...

The festivals’s long-running Silver Screen Awards includes a nine-strong Asian feature film competition, featuring several titles by first-time directors.

The Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) has revealed the line-up for its 30th edition, which runs Nov 21-Dec 1.

The festivals’s long-running Silver Screen Awards includes a nine-strong Asian feature film competition, featuring several titles by first-time directors. Most of the contenders are already award winners, including Gu Xiaogang’s Dwelling In The Fuchun Mountains which earned best film and best director at First International Film Festival in Xining, Yosep Anggi Noen’s The Science Of Fictions, which received a special mention at Locarno,...

Starting 23 October pre-sales for this year’s edition of the Singapore International Film Festival will start, a festival which will celebrate its 30th edition. In case you are a SGIFFFriend, you will be able to buy tickets one day earlier.

On 22 October the festival will also reveal its full programme consisting of films, masterclasses and other events. You can find the all the information regarding tickets and the full program on the festival’s official website.

Along with the programme, the Southeast Asian Film Lab will also open its doors providing a “nurturing and collaborative space for Southeast Asian filmmakers who are embarking on their first feature-length film project.” This year’s mentors are Michel

Reilhac as well as mentors Lee Chatametikool and Teresa Kwong.

For more information on the Southeast Asian Film Lab, please click here.

Secondly, there is the Youth Jury & Critics Programme. “Led by Kong Rithdee, Deputy...

Hollywood’s superheroes are likely to continue their rampage through global multiplexes for the foreseeable future, but there is a growing resistance movement in Bangkok that is championing art house alternatives to all their antics.

“The film culture in Thailand is expanding,” says Kong Rithdee, deputy director of the Thailand Film Archive.

The archive is situated about an hour’s drive out of central Bangkok, and will soon add a cinematheque to its already impressive daily list of screenings. The complex also features permanent exhibitions tracing the history of cinema — and of cinema in Thailand — and ...

Hollywood’s superheroes are likely to continue their rampage through global multiplexes for the foreseeable future, but there is a growing resistance movement in Bangkok that is championing art house alternatives to all their antics.

“The film culture in Thailand is expanding,” says Kong Rithdee, deputy director of the Thailand Film Archive.

The archive is situated about an hour’s drive out of central Bangkok, and will soon add a cinematheque to its already impressive daily list of screenings. The complex also features permanent exhibitions tracing the history of cinema — and of cinema in Thailand — and ...

She was programme director of Taipei Film Festival from 2014-2018.

Kuo Ming Jung has been appointed new programme director for Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff), stepping up from her previous role as the festival’s consultant and taking the reins from Thailand’s Pimpaka Towira.

Taiwan-born Kuo has spent much of her career in film festival management, programming and distribution. She was programme director of Taipei Film Festival from 2014-2018.

Thailand-born Pimpaka who served as programme director for the last two editions of Sgiff is also a filmmaker. She has received a government grant from the Thai Media Fund for...

The Singapore International Film Festival has appointed Taiwanese film curator, Kuo Ming-Jung, as its new program director alongside executive director, Yuni Hadi.

A previous Consultant of Sgiff, Kuo takes over from Thai filmmaker and critic, Pimpaka Towira, to lead the festival’s film curation and programs. An experienced film industry professional, Kuo was the program director at the Taipei Film Festival from 2014 to 2018. She has also served on several juries and selection panels including at Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Locarno Film Festival.

The 30th Sgiff will run from 21 Nov. to 1 Dec. 2019

Festival organizers also announced details of the first edition of the Sgiff Film Academy (Sfa), which it describes as “the region’s first holistic training initiative to support Southeast Asian film talents and nurture film appreciation among the audience.”

Four documentary projects received funding under the new Sgiff Se Asian documentary grant scheme: “Some Women,...

This article is taken from Koschke #2, the publication of Berlin Critic's Week 2019. The issue brings together writings inspired by the film and debate program running alongside the Berlinale with reflections on the late German director and notorious public provocateur Christoph Schlingensief, whose legacy is also one of the topics of the opening conference at Volksbühne. Authors and interviewees include Erika Balsom, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Lili Hinstin, Eva Sangiorgi, Tricia Tuttle, Kong Rithdee and many others. Christoph Schlingensief. Courtesy of Filmgalerie 451.Christoph Schlingensief was the nightmare of the German middle class. He would target those elusive yet powerful elements of society that can only be defined negatively—neither right nor left, neither poor nor rich, neither gushing nor aloof—and drag them onto every stage, before every camera, into every spotlight. The Mittelklasse, the bourgeois median, was his origin, his métier, his life’s work. He raised hell wherever normality became normative.

“An impossible utopia. A hopeless dream.”

As most artists are aware, it is simply impossible not to make a statement with one’s work. Even though it seems strange to think of mainstream films – the sheer never-ending stream of superhero-movies or romantic comedies, to name two examples – as having some kind of agenda besides the obvious economic interests of production companies, there is not denying the paradox that no message is still some kind of message. Of course, we all know this theory relies on how much emphasis and attention an artist puts on these thematic layers of his or her work, especially since these issues, whether they are political, social or cultural, have become increasingly complex pits of quicksand for those treading carelessly.

Especially when these various layers are met with the panoptic oversight of censorship. After a 12-year-hiatus from narrative films, Thai director Pimpaka Towira chose to talk...

Critics this year include La Times’ Justin Chang, Positif’s Michel Ciment and Sight And Sound’s Nick James.

Screen can reveal its critics for the jury grid that will run throughout Cannes 2018 (May 8-19).

There will be nine submitting entries, composed of ten different critics plus Screen’s own team.

Each member will review the 21 titles in Competition and assign a score of up to four stars, which are aggregated to crown an overall winner. The results will be published in Screen’s Cannes daily magazines as well as here on screendaily.com.

A new addition to the grid...

Towira directed One Night Husband and The Island Funeral.

Thai pioneering female filmmaker Pimpaka Towira has been appointed programme director of the Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff).

Joining her as new programme consultants are Anderson Le, programme director of Hawaii International Film Festival, Kong Rithdee, Bangkok Post’s film critic and arts editor, and Kuo Ming-jung, programme director of Taipei Film Festival.

Pimpaka takes over from Zhang Wenjie who served as festival director from 2014-2016 since the festival was relaunched in 2014 after a two-year hiatus. Yuni Hadi remains as executive director, along with former Singapore Film Commission assistant director Ang Hwee Sim as general manager.

Pimpaka has her career rooted in both filmmaking and festival programming. She was programme director for Bangkok Film Festival in 2001 before it was rebranded by Tourism Authority of Thailand as the Bangkok International Film Festival. She assumed the same role for the latter festival in 2008 and 2009. More recently, she programmed...

Jury members include Justin Chang, Robbie Collin and Manohla Dargis.

Screen International’s jury of critics at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (May 11-22) has been revealed.

Joining Screen International’s team of film critics, led by chief critic Fionnuala Halligan, is the Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang, The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin, the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis and 10 other critics from around the world.

Michel Ciment, Positif, FranceFabio Ferzetti, Il Messaggero, Italy Kong Rithdee, The Bangkok Post, ThailandJulien Gester/Didier Peron, Liberation, FranceJan Schulz-Ojala, Der Tagespiegel, GermanyManohla Dargis, The New York Times, USStephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine, USJustin Chang, Los Angeles Times, USNick James, Sight & Sound, UKTim Robey/Robbie Collin, The Telegraph, UKAnton Dolin, Afisha Daily, Russia

Each member will review the 21 titles in Competition and assign a score of up to four stars, which are aggregated to crown an overall winner. The results will be published in Screen’s Cannes dailies as well as...

Screen International’s legendary Cannes Palme D’Or jury swings back into action today, as the 68th festival gets into full swing and the first two films have played out at the Palais Des Festivals.

New jury members this year include Julien Gester and Didier Peron from French powerhouse daily Liberation; Il Messaggero’s Fabio Ferzetti in Italy; Australian critic Paul Byrnes from The Age/Sydney Morning Herald; and Thailand, where the Bangkok Post’s Kong Rithdee will weigh in with his daily verdicts.

They join Kate Muir and Wendy Ide from The Times, London, Nick James from Sight and Sound, stalwart jury member Michel Ciment, of Positif, and Jan Schulz-Ojala of Der Tagesspiegel, Germany.

Their first two sets of scores are from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister, and Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales, and the overall impression is… mixed.

Kore-eda wowed two critics with four palmes each, leaving most others...

Guests include John Woo, Zhang Ziyi, Juliette Binoche, Cheng Pei Pei, Tong Dawei, Chen Bolin and Nastassja Kinski.

At the 25th Singapore International Film Festival, Indian justice system drama Court won Best Film and Best Director for Chaitanya Tamhane at the Silver Screen Awards yesterday (Dec 13).

Earlier this year at the Venice Film Festival, the film also picked up Best Film in the Orrizonti section and the Lion of the Future - Luigi de Laurentiis award for a debut film.

The Silver Screen Awards jury, headed by Wang Xiaoshuai, stated: “This glittering gem dazzles with its simplicity, elegance and breathtaking naturalism. Every facet of this film shines, from the humanity of its screenplay, to the originality of its structure, to the assuredness of its direction. A brilliant achievement.”

The Silver Screen Awards this year has two categories - the Asian Feature Film Competition and the inaugural Southeast Asian Short Film Competition. (See below for...