Indian animated feature Heirloom won two awards at the closing of this year’s HKIFF Industry Project Market (March 11-13) in Hong Kong, where 21 cash and in-kind awards worth $223,000 were handed out.
Heirloom, which will be the feature debut of Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and is produced by Arya A Menon and Shubham Karna, won the WIP award for a non-Hong Kong project as well as being one of five films selected for the HAF goes to Cannes programme.
It centres on a married couple who come into conflict when the husband inherits a handloom trade and wants to maintain traditions while the wife looks to embrace new technologies.
The IDP award for Hong Kong projects was also awarded to an animated film – The Excreman – On The Road by veteran Hong Kong animator Brian Tse – while Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada (Harmonium) won the White Light Post post-production award for an IDP project for his in-development feature Nagi Notes, which is a Japan-France co-production.
Besides Heirloom, other double award winners included Oliver Chan Siu-kuen’s Montages Of A Modern Motherhood, which won the WIP award for a Hong Kong project, and Zhang Zhongchen’s Chinese production The Land Is Our Navel, which counts Midi Z as one of its producers and won the AimMedia award. Both titles were also selected as part of the HAF goes to Cannes lineup.
The former is the story of a mother facing drastic change in her life, while the latter is a drama about the arrival of a ghost child in a peaceful village and marks Zhang’s follow-up to his 2021 debut feature The White Cow.
This year’s Project Market incorporated the 22nd Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) with the inaugural HKIFF Industry – CAA China Genre Initiative (HCG).
The HCG Awards were presented to Taiwanese comedy drama Call Of Lobster by Yin Chen-Hao, about a gangster-turned-lobster farmer who travels to North Korea to share his techniques, and bank-heist-gone-wrong comedy Dying Fire by Chinese filmmaker Gao Linyang, whose debut feature To Love Again won a special jury award in last year’s Rotterdam Tiger Competition.
Forty-seven projects were presented over the course of the three-day event.
HKIFF Industry Project Market award winners:
HCG Award: Call Of Lobster (Taiwan), dir. Yin Chen-Hao
HCG Award: Dying Fire (China), dir. Gao Linyang
IDP Award for a Hong Kong project: The Excreman – On the Road (HK), dir. Brian Tse
IDP Award for a non-Hong Kong project: Blonde (Japan), dir. Yuichiro Sakashita
WIP Award for a Hong Kong project: Montages Of A Modern Motherhood (HK), dir. Oliver Chan Siu-kuen
WIP Award for a non-Hong Kong project: Heirloom (India), dir. Upamanyu Bhattacharyya
CCG Grand Award: The Way We Talk (HK), dir. Adam Wong Sau-ping
AimMedia Award: The Land Is Our Navel (China), dir. Zhang Zhongchen
TAICCA Award: Encore (US-HK), dir. Stefanos Tai
Taipei Film Commission Award: A Ghost In The Market (Taiwan), dir. Chin Chia-Hua
Project D Award: The Sichuan Culinary Chronicles: In Four Chapters (China-HK), dir. Qiu Jiongjiong
La Fonte X Inbetween Award: Staring At Your Back (S Kor-Jap-Tai), dir. Jang Kun-Jae
White Light Post Post-Production Award for an IDP project: Nagi Notes (Japan-Fr), dir. Koji Fukada
White Light Post Post-Production Award for a WIP project: To Kill A Mongolian Horse (China), dir. by Jiang Xiaoxuan
Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) Award: The Vampire Of Sheung Shui (HK), dir. Shreyom Ghosh
Udine Focus Asia Award: White Flowers And Fruits (Japan), dir. Yukari Sakamoto
HAF Goes to Cannes Program:
Admission (China), dir. Quentin Hsu Kun-Hua
Heirloom (India), dir. Upamanyu Bhattacharyya
Intimate Encounter (Taiwan), dir. Chang Tso-Chi
The Land Is Our Navel (China), dir. Zhang Zhongchen
Montages Of A Modern Motherhood (HK), dir. Oliver Chan Siu-kuen
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