The Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) has selected 27 winners for this year’s Asian Cinema Fund (ACF), including Tan Chui Mui’s second feature The Year Without a Summer for post-production support.

With an aim to discover hidden Asian talent and provide them with a dedicated funding system that will increase international recognition, ACF has three categories: the Script Development Fund, Post Production Fund, and Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund.

ACF has this year started a support fund for Asian Film Academy (AFA) graduates, with a cash award of $8,300 (KW10m) within the Script Development Fund. Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, a 2009 AFA graduate, is the first to win the fund with the Thai project Departure Day.

The Year Without Summer also previously won an ACF Script Development Fund. Tan’s feature debut Love Conquers All won PIFF’s New Currents Award in 2006.

Another New Currents Award and ACF winner, Aditya Assarat (in 2007 with Wonderful Town), is now producing Sivaroj Kongsakul’s Eternity, which has also won post-production support.

PIFF noted upon multi-national co-production winners such as 5 Broken Cameras, which captures a story of a family living in a conflict area oppressed by violence and oppression. The film is a co-production between the Palestine Authorities, Israel, and France.

The 15th PIFF will run Oct 7-15 with its Asian Film Market running Oct 10-13 in Korea’s southern port city of Busan.

Full List of ACF 2010 Winners

(Title / Director / Country)

1. Script Development Fund

The Southern Route (Jalur Selatan)/ Yogi D. Sumul / Indonesia

It must be a Camel/ Charlotte LIM Lay Kuen/ Malaysia

Television/ Mostafa Sarwar Farooki/ Bangladesh

The Rainbow (Raduga)/ Yolkin Tuichiev/ Uzbekistan

POWWOW/ Ahn Seul-Ki/ Korea

Alive Life/ Park Jung-bum/ Korea

Room Service/ Lee Woo-jung/ Korea

Departure Day/ Phuttiphong Aroonpheng/ Thailand – AFA Support Fund*

2.  Post-Production Fund

Floating Lives (Canh Dong Bat Tan)/ Nguyen Phan Quang Binh/ Vietnam

The Year without a Summer/Tan Chui Mui/     Malaysia

Eternity (Tee-Rak)/ Sivaroj Kongsakul/ Thailand

Ordinary Days/ INAN/ Korea

Re-encounter/ Min Yong Keun/ Korea

3. Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

Intimations of a Rebellion/ Sanjay Kak/ India

Old Man Tang/ Xu Tong/ China

The Cat with a Million Lives/ Kotani Tadasuke/ Japan

Inshallah, Football!/           Ashvin Kumar/ India

5 Broken Cameras/ Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi/ Palestine, Israel, France

Playing with Nan/ Dipesh Kharel & Saito Asami/ Nepal, Japan

Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir/ Shashwati Talukdar & P. Kerim Friedman/ India, USA, Taiwan

The Confession/ Eliane Raheb/ Lebanon

Tour of Duty/ Kim Dong-Ryung, Park Kyoung-Tae/ Korea

Anxiety/ Min Hwan-ki/ Korea

Let the River Flow/ Kang Se-Jin, Kauh E.J./      Korea

Sea of Butterfly/ Park Bae-il/        Korea

Goodbye Homerun/ Lee Jung-ho/ Korea

First Love – 1989, Memory of Sumida/ Park Jeong Suk/ Korea

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