Carrie Ng and Shirley Yung’s Angel Whispers won this year’s HAF award for a Hong Kong project at the close of the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (March 26), while Taiwan’s Private Eyes won the HAF award for a non-Hong Kong project.

Angel Whispers is a suspense thriller set in the red-light district of Sham Shui Po. Filmmaker and actress Ng will produce with Yung and Chan Pang-chun.

Chang Jung Chi’s Private Eyes is a detective mystery based on the bestselling novel written by Chi Wei Jan. Chang previously directed award-winning drama Touch Of The Light. The HAF awards both come with a cash award of $38,460 (HK$300,000).

Meanwhile, the $12,820 ($100,000) HAF Script Development Fund, presented by Emperor Motion Pictures and the HKIFF Society, went to Taiwanese filmmaker Jack Shih’s animation feature project The Solitary Pier.

Love Is Speaking, from Shanghai-based director Shu Haolun, won the HAF/Fox Chinese Film Development Award.

Based on a story that was posted on Chinese social networking site Weibo, the romantic drama tells the story of a woman who runs into her first love at the marriage registration office.

The winner of the HAF/Fox award receives $12,820 ($100,000) and a development contract with Fox.

The $6,410 (HK$50,000) Wouter Barendrecht Award, co-presented by the Wouter Barendrecht Film Foundation and the Hong Kong Film Development Fund, went to Fazila Amiri’s Hip Hop Kabul, a documentary feature about Afghanistan’s first female rapper, Paradise Soururi.

The Network of Asian Fantastic Film (NAFF) Award went to Dead, End, from India’s Dev Benegal. The project, which will be invited to participated in next year’s NAFF, is a dark comedy about a man who is declared dead by the shady Governor of Departments (GoD) and has to fight to prove he’s still alive.

Meanwhile, the inaugural Fushan Documentary Award, presented by Chinese production outfit Fushan Features, went to Dust, which follows four individuals brought together by a coalmine, and will be directed by Zhao Liang.

Topics