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Afghan, Taiwanese films win top prize
Films on ravaged people, ethereally beautiful yet funda- mentally dysfunctional shared the top award at the sixth Cinefan.
Films on ravaged people, ethereally beautiful yet fundamentally dysfunctional, from Afghanistan and Taiwan won top awards at the Asian film festival that concluded here on Sunday.
Earth and Ashes by Paris-based Afghan director Atiq Rahimi and The Missing by Lee Kang-Sheng of Taiwan shared the Best Film award at the sixth Osian Cinefan film festival.
Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy was the chief guest on the closing night of the 10-day festival at the capital's Siri Fort auditorium.
Earth and Ashes traces the path of an old man and his grandson as they travel to a coal mine after their village is bombed to bits. The film talks of loss and longing in the bleary, desolate landscape of war-ravaged Afghanistan.
At the mine is the boy's father, who has to be told that the family is finished, that nothing remains apart from the three of them. During the journey, they meet a kaleidoscope of characters, including a philosophical merchant and a mysterious veiled woman.
Earth and Ashes is an adaptation of a novel written by Rahimi, which is set during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It won an award at Cannes this year.
"I am delighted," said Rahimi. "I've always believed that my cinema is like a mirror to tell my people what they have become because of war and how to come out of that and lead peaceful lives."
The Missing is a haunting tale of two unrelated people, an infant and a pensioner, who go missing on the same day and through the search for them, the ironies of our times are revealed.
Against the backdrop of the hunt, people fall ill with a SARS-like virus and a war rages somewhere, echoing on television sets.
The Best Actress prize went to Katherine Luna for her role in the Philippines film Woman of Breakwater.
"Thank you very much for this award," said Luna, as she wept with joy on the stage.
The film meanders through the lives of acutely poor people who live in a shantytown along the Manila Bay breakwater - people who must beg, steal and rampantly prostitute to make a living.
It juxtaposes a sadistic cripple who is a threatening presence on the slum, two brothers and a sex worker, showing them as undulating flotsam that rises and falls, lives and dies, in the waters of the bay.
Abdul Ghani of Earth and Ashes won the Best Actor prize.
There were also Special Mention trophies for Lu Yi-Ching of The Missing and Kwak Ji-Min of the Korean film Samaritan Girl.
The Netpac foundation (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) award went to the Syrian film Listener's Choice.
The audience prize of Rs.100,000 went to the Gangsters of Bombay, a film by Sandip Ray, the son of legendary director Satyajit Ray.
