SYDNEY: An Australian movie highlighting the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities won top prize at the third annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards this week in which 37 films from 16 countries were competing.
The movie Samson and Delilah, directed by Warwick Thornton, won the Camera d'Or prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and has done the rounds of international film fests this year as well as being nominated for 13 Australian Film Institute Awards.
It tells the story of two Aboriginal teenagers living in squalor and highlights the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities where glue-sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence are common, although it ends on a more hopeful note.
Thornton, who was raised in Alice Springs in the heart of Australia, cast two non-actor children, Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson, in the lead roles.
It was the first time an Australian film was nominated in the best feature film category and it was up against four others: Forever Enthralled by Chen Kaige from China and Lu Chuan's war epic Nanjing! Nanjing!, Iranian Asghar Farhadi's Darbareye Elly (About Elly), and Israeli Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains.
"Samson and Delilah has a very special something - the integrity of the filmmaker, the passion and the sincerity of it is really beyond comparison," said a member of the judging jury, South Korean writer/director Gina Kim.
Japan's Masahiro Motoki received the award for best actor for his role as a cellist/mortician in Okuribito (Departures) and the best actress award went to South Korea's Kim Hye-ja for Madeo (Mother).
China's Nanjing! Nanjing! received two awards - Lu Chuan for achievement in directing and Cao Yu for achievement in cinematography.
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards were presented in the state of Queensland with more than 800 guests from the Asia-Pacific film industry.
The finalists were determined by an international jury headed by Chinese director and producer Huang Jianxin.
The awards were set up as an international culture initiative by the Australian state government of Queensland with a record 212 entries from 43 countries this year.
Reuters
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