Hong Kong filmmaker Sasha Chuk emerged as the biggest winner at this year’s Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), picking up an unprecedented five awards, including the Heaven Pictures Young Director Award.
Produced by Stanley Kwan, the HAF Work-in-Progress project also won the CCG Grand Award, the mm2 Award, the WIP Award and is also one of five projects selected for this year’s ‘HAF Goes To Cannes’ initiative. Backed by Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative (FFFI), the film tells the story of two immigrant sisters in the 1990s who move from China to live with their drug addicted father in Hong Kong.
Taiwan’s Lien Chien-Hung and China’s Guan Tian both picked up three awards each for Salli and The Poison Cat, respectively. Salli, about a lonely middle-aged farmer who starts an online romance with a foreign man, took the WIP Award for a non-Hong Kong project, the White Light Post Post-Production Award for a WIP project, and was also selected for the HAF Goes to Cannes Program.
Fantasy thriller The Poison Cat, to be filmed in dialects of China’s Yunnan province, took the White Light Post Post-Production Award for an IDP project, the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) Award and the Udine Focus Asia Award (see full list of winners below).
HAF handed out a total of 20 cash and in-kind awards, collectively worth more than $170,000. Returning to its regular March dates alongside Filmart, the 21st edition of the projects market was its first as an in-person event since 2019, following three consecutive online editions.
Event organisers said it attracted 30% more accredited participants than the last edition and facilitated more than one thousand private meetings between the project teams and participating industry professionals, representing an increase of 9% from last year.
A total of 43 projects were showcased at the event, including 15 works-in-progress, shortlisted from 350 submissions. The line-up also included 10 Hong Kong projects and 22 involving a first-time director.
HAF 2023 FULL LIST OF AWARDS:
IDP Award for a Hong Kong project: The Marriage Drive (Hong Kong) by Lawrence Kan
IDP Award for a non-Hong Kong project: Non-fiction Stories (Mainland China) by Zhao Jin
WIP Award for a Hong Kong project: Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong) by Sasha Chuk
WIP Award for a non-Hong Kong project: Salli (Taiwan, France) by Lien Chien-Hung
CCG Grand Award: Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong) by Sasha Chuk
Heaven Pictures Young Director Award: Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong) by Sasha Chuk
mm2 Award: Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong) by Sasha Chuk
TAICCA Award: Skin Coat (Singapore) by Tan Wei Keong
Taipei Film Commission Award: Racing Storm (Taiwan) by Lin Yu-Hsien & Skin Coat (Singapore) by Tan Wei Keong
White Light Post Post-Production Award for an IDP project: The Poison Cat (Mainland China) by Guan Tian
White Light Post Post-Production Award for a WIP project: Salli (Taiwan, France) by Lien Chien-Hung
ARRI Award: The Mermaid’s Tale by Norris Wong
Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) Award: The Poison Cat (Mainland China) by Guan Tian
Udine Focus Asia Award: The Poison Cat (Mainland China) by Guan Tian
HAF Goes to Cannes Program:
Brief History Of A Family (Mainland China) by Lin Jianjie
Fly Me To The Moon (Hong Kong) by Sasha Chuk
Hani (Hong Kong) by Hou Dasheng
Salli (Taiwan, France) by Lien Chien-Hung
Who Were We? (Japan) by Tomina Tetsuya