Korean director Hong Sung-eun’s Aloners was awarded with the Grand Prix for best picture at this year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival (OAFF, March 10-20).
The film, a character study of a solitary young woman working in a call centre, previously won two awards at last year’s Jeonju International Film Festival – best actress for Gong Seung-yeon’s performance and the CGV Korean Independent Feature Distribution Award. It also played in the Discovery section at Toronto.
Osaka Asian’s Most Promising Talent Award went to Angry Son, directed by Japan’s Kasho Iizuka, about the complicated relationship between a mixed race teenager and his mother, a Filipina who came to Japan as a domestic worker.
Hong Kong director Longman Leung’s Anita, a biopic of Cantopop star Anita Mui, was awarded with a Competition Special Mention and the Audience Award.
Another Hong Kong drama, The First Girl I Loved, co-directed by Candy Ng and Yeung Chiu Hoi, took the ABC TV Award, while the Yakushi Pearl Award went to Bayartsetseg Bayarjargal, the lead actor of Mongolian drama The Sales Girl.
The Japan Cuts Award went to Ryohei Sasatani’s Sanka: Nomads Of The Mountains. In the Short Film competition, the Housen Short Film Award was presented to Eugene Koshin’s We’ll Never Get Lost Together Again, a co-production between Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, while a special mention went to Abe Junko for her role in Japan-Nepal co-production Bagmati River.
The festival closed on March 20 with a screening of Miss Osaka, a mystery drama directed by Daniel Dencik.