Omar, Television among APSA nominees

Scoll down for full list of nominations

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s Television is one of six films in the running to win best feature at the 7^th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSAs) - the first film from Bangladesh to ever be nominated.

Television directly deals with issues of modernity versus tradition in rural Bangladesh, making it a film well worth debating within the context of the APSAs, which celebrate both quality cinema and the cultural importance of film.

Television closed the Busan International Film Festival last year. If it wins APSA’s highest accolade it will have impressed the jury more than Omar from Palestine; With You, Without You from Sri Lanka; Like Father, Like Son from Japan; The Turning;, an anthology film from Australia and The Past, directed by one of APSA’s most high-profile regular contenders, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi.

Omar has two additional nominations – for actor Adam Bakri and cinematography Ehab Assal – giving it more nominations than any other film.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia, like Bangladesh, have not previously been nominated for APSAs but each has a film in the category for best children’s feature: When I Saw You (Jordan/Palestine) and Wadjda (Saudi Arabia/Germany).

Graham Quirk, Lord Mayor of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, revealed the nominations today.

The APSA field is wide open with five films having two nominations each: Television, The Past and Like Father, Like Son along with The Old Man from Kazahstan and My Sweet Pepper Land from Iraqi-Kurdish director Hiner Saleem.

Two of the directors of these five films - Salem and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Like Father, Like Son) - have nominations in that category alongside Shahram Mokhri. (Fish and Cat, Islamic Republic of Iran), Anthony Chen (Ilo, Ilo, Singapore) and Emir Baigazin (Harmony Lessons, Kazakhstan/Germany/France).

Japan has more nominations than any other country with six, Palestine with five, and India with four. The Republic of Korea, Kazakhstan and Australia have three each.

This year is the first in which UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and FIAFP (the International Federation of Film Producers Associations) have partnered with the Brisbane City Council for the staging of the awards, rather than the Australian state of Queensland.

Indian writer/director Shyam Benegal is this year’s jury president. Korean writer/director Kim Tae-yong, Sri Lankan actress and parliamentarian Malini Fonseka, Turkish actor Tamer Levent, Swiss director Christoph Schaub and Hong Kong producer Albert Lee will be making the decisions alongside him.

The APSAs will be presented on Dec 12 in Brisbane. They cover a region that includes 70 countries and more than 4.5 billion people.

Full list of nominations

BEST FEATURE

• Like Father, Like Son (Japan), producers Matsuzaki Kaoru, Taguchi Hijiri
• Omar (Palestine) Hany Abu-Assad, Waleed F Zuaiter, David Gerson
• The Past (France, Italy) Alexandre Mallet-Guy
• Television (Bangladesh) Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, co-producer Mahboob Rahman
• The Turning (Australia) Robert Connolly, Maggie Miles
• With You, Without You (Sri Lanka) Lasantha Navarathna, Mohamed Adamaly

BEST CHILDREN’S FEATURE

• Juvenile Offender (Republic of Korea) producer Park Joo-young
• Leaving on the 15^th Spring (Japan) Yasuhiro Masaoka, Hiroshi Higa, Takeshi Sawa
• Shopping (New Zealand) Sarah Shaw, Anna McLeish
• Wadjda (Saudi Arabia, Germany) Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, co-producer Amr Alkahtani
• When I Saw You (Palestine, Jordan) Ossama Bawardi, co-producers Rami Yasin, Sawsan Asfari, Maya Sanbar Jamo, Tariq Al Ghussein

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• The Act of Killing (Denmark, Norway, UK) producers Signe Byrge Sørensen, Joram Ten Brink, Christine Cynn, Anne Köhncke, Joshua Oppenheimer, Michael Uwemedimo, anonymous Indonesian producers, co-producers Torstein Grude, Bjarte Mørner Tveit, Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn
• The Gatekeepers (Israel, France, Germany, Belgium) Dror Moreh, Estelle Fialon, Phillipa Kowarsky, co-producer Anna Van der Wee
• Menstrual Man (Singapore, India) Amit Virmani, Seah Kui Luan
• No Burqas Behind Bars (Sweden, Japan, Netherlands, Denmark) Maryam Ebrahimi
• A World Not Ours (Lebanon, UK, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Palestine) Patrick Campbell, Mahdi Fleife

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• The Fake (Republic of Korea) producer Cho Young-kag
• Koo! Kin-Dza-Dza (Russian Federation) Sergey Selyanov, Leonid Yarmolnik, Yuri Kushnerev, Oleg Urushev, Konstantin Ernst
• Patema Inverted (Japan) Mikio Ono
• The Wind Rises (Japan) Toshio Suzuki
• The World of Goopi and Bagha (India) Children’s Film Society, India

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING

• Anthony Chen for Ilo Ilo (Singapore)
• Emir Baigazin for Harmony Lessons (Kazakhstan, Germany, France)
• Hiner Saleem for My Sweet Pepperland (Iraqi Kurdistan, France, Germany)
• Hirokazu Kore-eda for Like Father, Like Son (Japan)
• Shahram Mokri for Fish and Cat (Islamic Republic of Iran)

BEST SCREENPLAY

• Asghar Farhadi for The Past (France, Italy)
• Denis Osokin for Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (Russian Federation)
• Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Anisul Haque for Television (Bangladesh)
• Ritesh Batra for The Lunchbox (India, France, Germany)
• U-Wei Bin Hajisaari for Almayer’s Folly (Malaysia)

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Ehab Assal for Omar (Palestine)
• Lu Yue for Back to 1942 (People’s Republic of China)
• Mandy Walker for Tracks (Australia, UK)
• Murat Aliyev for The Old Man (Kazakhstan)
• Rajeev Ravi for Monsoon Shootout (India, UK, Netherlands)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR

• Aaron Pedersen in Mystery Road (Australia)
• Adam Bakri in Omar (Palestine)
• Lee Byung-hun in Masquerade (Republic of Korea)
• Tatsuya Nakadai in Japan’s Tragedy (Japan)
• Yerbolat Toguzakov in The Old Man (Kazakhstan)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS

• Ayça Damgacı in Yozgat Blues (Turkey, Germany)
• Golshifteh Farahani in My Sweet Pepperland (Iraqi Kurdistan, France, Germany)
• Negar Javaherian in The Painting Pool (Islamic Republic of Iran)
• Whirimako Black in White Lies (New Zealand)
• Zhang Ziyi in The Grandmaster (Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China)