Pema Tseden’s Old Dog sweeps awards at Seoul's CinDis

The 5th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CinDi) wrapped yesterday with Pema Tseden’s Old Dog sweeping the Red, Green and White Chameleon Awards.

The Red Chameleon award is presented by a jury of international directors while the Green Chameleon is given by Korean journalists. Both come with cash prizes of KW20m ($18,500). The White Chameleon is presented by the CinDiphile audience jury and comes with a trophy and Canon 5D camera.

Pema Tseden thanked the festival and juries: “This is my third film, and I tried to purely portray my home of Tibet. The film has brought me many honors tonight, but it has been a source of stress for me. I tried to portray the situation in Tibet and its people so that the world could know about them. In truth, it is my most sincerest film.”

The Red Chameleon jury – which included filmmakers Eric Khoo, Penek Ratanaruang and Lee Yoon-ki – also gave a Special Mention to Flying Fish, directed by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara.

The film also took the Blue Chameleon Award (also with KW20m) from the international jury of critics and academics. Sri Lankan director Sanjeewa Pushpakumara - who also won the Rotterdam Tiger Award earlier this year, spoke in fluent Korean and English to dedicate the award to the Korean people for sponsoring his current film studies in Korea.

CJ CGV annually picks two films from the entire festival lineup to give the Movie Collage award which comes with a minimum two-week theatrical release and KW10m ($9,250) worth of marketing support. This year’s winners are Vimukthi Jayasundara’s India-France coproduction Mushrooms and Kong Quee-hyun’s Korean film U.F.O.

CinDi wrapped after seven days with Red Chameleon Award winner Old Dog screening as the closing film. Attendees lauded the festival on its intimate size and focused selection.

Director Kong Quee-hyun said: “As an independent filmmaker, you think no one thinks the way you do, but CinDi has been a great encouragement.”