APRIL TAKES BEST FILM AT 17th ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore feature April pulled off a stunning double win at the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA). The gripping drama took home the APSA for Best Film, with the APSA for Best Performance going to Ia Sukhitashvili (pictured, below) for her deeply personal portrayal of a Georgian Ob Gyn providing women’s health services.

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards honours the cinematic excellence of 78 countries and areas of the Asia Pacific, and films that best reflect their cultural origins and the diversity of the vast region.

In a strong year for women’s stories, the International Jury awarded its Grand Prize to All We Imagine as Light (pictured, right), the acclaimed second feature from India’s Payal Kapadia. The Prize, selected at the discretion of the jury, was awarded to this story of two working-class nurses amidst the nocturnal landscape of Mumbai.

Best Youth Film also goes to a female director from India, Lakshmipriya Devi for Boong, the heartwarming story of a young boy in remote Manipur who goes on an adventure to reunite his family.

The APSA for Best Animated Film has been won by The Missing (Iti Mapukpukaw, Philippines). The film, a groundbreaking adult sci-fi animation, is a personal tale from director Carl Joseph Papa who accepted the award on the night.

Best Documentary Film was won by No Other Land (Palestine, Norway), directed as a group by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham, and giving their perspective on the violence and destruction surrounding them.

Georgian director Tato Kotetishvili was awarded Best Director for his debut feature, the dark comedy Holy Electricity (Georgia, Netherlands), which sees cousins selling neon crucifixes door to door in Tbilisi, in a cinematic ode to the city and its people.

From Türkiye, the tense legal thriller Hesitation Wound (Tereddüt Çizgisi; Türkiye, Spain, Romania, France) has seen writer/director Selman Nacar win for Best Screenplay for his second feature, the story of a fiercely intelligent female defence attorney facing mounting professional, personal and moral challenges.

Winning Best Cinematography is French cinematographer Michaël Capron (Blue Is the Warmest Colour) for Mongrel, the contemplative Taiwanese drama that puts the unseen life of an undocumented Thai carer in the spotlight.

And New Zealand’s prolific producer, actor and former APSA winner Cliff Curtis was the recipient of the prestigious FIAPF Award, determined by Federation of Film Producers Associations, and awarded for outstanding achievement in film in the Asia Pacific region. “My heart is filled with gratitude for the privilege of working alongside the artists, collaborators and mentors whose works have made this award possible,” said Curtis.

The three previously announced winners were all in attendance to accept their awards: Neo Sora received APSA’s Young Cinema Award in partnership with NETPAC for Happyend and Nepali director Min Bahadur Bham accepted the Cultural Diversity Award for Shambhala. Georgia’s Data Chachua accepted his APSA for Best New Performer for Panopticon (trailer, above), a film which also stars APSA Best Performance winner Ia Sukhitashvili.