Sudabeh Mortezai’s Macondo won the Firebird Award in the Young Cinema Competition of this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), while Tetsuichiro Tsuta’s The Tale Of Iya took the Jury Prize.
The jury praised Macondo, an Austrian drama centring on an 11-year-old Chechnyan refugee, for its “simplicity and humanity [which] show great sensitivity to universal human problems”. Ayumi Sakamoto’s Forma received a special mention in the Young Cinema Competition.
The Firebird Award in the Documentary Competition went to Farida Pacha’s My Name Is Salt, while the Jury Prize went to Gu Tao’s The Last Moose Of Aoluguya and Bernard Bloch’s Meat And Milk received a special mention.
Hu Wei’s The Butter Lamp, about Tibetan nomads, won the Firebird Award in the Short Film Competition. The Jury Prize went to Leo Woodhead’s Cold Snap, while Janie Geiser’s Kriminalistik won the Internet Audience Award and Reka Bucsi’s Symphony No. 42 received a special mention.
The SIGNIS Award, recognising films that express social and humanitarian concerns, went to Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush, while Richie Mehta’s Siddharth and Rashid Masharawi’s Palestine Stereo both received special mentions. The FIPRESCI prize went to Korean filmmaker Lee Yong-seung’s 10 Minutes.
The awards were presented at a ceremony on Saturday night at the Kowloon Bay International Trade & Exhibition Centre (KITEC), which houses the new Metroplex cinema, one of the festival’s major screening venues.
The juries for the five award categories included industry figures such as Korean director Bong Joon Ho, Hong Kong actress Karena Lam, film theorist and critic David Bordwell and French actor and producer Christopher Lambert.
The HKIFF wrapped on Monday, April 7 with a screening of local director Dante Lam’s That Demon Within.
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