China's biggest ever box office success, Tangshan dadizheng/Aftershock, left the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) the big winner the other night, clutching the goings for Best Film and Best Actor. Unfortunately Boy and Home By Christmas left without winning their 'Best' categories, although Tony Barry did take away a special prize for his turn as Gayle Preston's dad.
From an entry pool of 239 films the judges, led by Lord David Puttnam, whittled away to award seven films the Best in Category prizes, as well as handing out some jury, commendation and special awards. Lee Chang-dong's Shi/Poetry, seen here in this year's NZFF and a winner at Cannes (Best Screenplay), earned its director his third APSA prize, this time as Best Director. The award follows his Best Film win at the 2007 inaugural bash (Miryang/Secret Sunshine) and last year's Best Children's Feature Film (Ya Haeng Ja/A Brand New Life). Poetry also won the Best Actress award for veteran Korean actress Jeong-hee Yoon, who came out of retirement to take the role.
Other recipients were Sergey Dvortsevoy (Tuplan), Ashar Farhadi (About Elly) and Peng Tao (Xue Chan).
All in all, APSA lived up to its name, sharing the gongs and special awards right across the region from Turkey and Israel, through Iran, India, China, Korea and Indonesia down to Australia.