Asian World Film Festival Names Its Honorees, Awards Due at Nov. 19 Closing
The Asian World Film Festival has named its honorees, and the awards will be handed out at the closing ceremony on Nov. 19 at the Culver Theater, according to Variety.
The honours recognise people who have helped bring Asian stories to audiences around the world. Mason Reeves, the star of "Josephine," will receive the Snow Leopard Rising Star Award. Irene Tsu will receive the Snow Leopard Outstanding Cinematic Achievement Award, and Artykpai Suyundukov will receive the Snow Leopard Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Bruce Lee Award goes to Diana Lee Inosanto.
The festival is already well under way. It opened on Nov. 12 with "Kassandra," the official submission from Kyrgyzstan for the international feature Oscar. That is the Academy Awards category for films made outside the United States in a language other than English. The film was directed by Bekzat Pirmatov.
The festival's Snow Leopard competition has 16 films, each one representing its country in the international Oscar race. Titles listed in the competition include "A Foggy Tale" from Taiwan, "Citizen Osama" from Palestine, "Filipiñana" from the Philippines, "Once Upon a Time in the Middle East" from China and "Gondhal" from India.
Audiences will also see several films that are already talked about in the awards race. Lee Chang-dong's "Possible Love," Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "All of a Sudden" and Andrey Zvyagintsev's "Minotaur" are all screening at the festival as Oscar contenders.
The closing night film is Peter Ho-Sun Chan's "The Road Not Taken," which screens on Nov. 19, the same day as the awards ceremony.
For anyone planning to go, the schedule is clear. The honours are set for the closing night, and the festival's line-up runs from the Kyrgyz opening film to Chan's closer. The ceremony date and venue are the two things to note.
