SINGAPORE, Dec 6 — Director Deepak Rauniyarand and actor Dayahang Rai hit the red carpet at the Singapore Film Festival.
Their movie White Sun won the highest honour — the Best Film award.
That’s something Deepak says is a sign of approval for his work after deciding to take a new direction in filmmaking.
“We are in the right moment of cinema where we are trying to find our own home grown voice for the cinema where our market is mostly dominated by Bollywood and the last couple of years we have been trying different films and this award is kind of endorsement for what we are doing,” says Deepak Rauniyar.
Another big winner on the night was Bangladeshi debut feature Live From Dhaka. It nabbed Mostafa Monwar the Best Performance award and Abdullah Mohammad Saad the Best Director award.
Despite picking up two awards, the director said the possibility of releasing the film in his home country is in doubt.
“That’s the world premiere, it hasn’t been shown in Bangladesh yet but we are planning to release it in January but we are not sure whether we are going to be able to do it, it’s not a very comfortable situation for independent films in our country,” says Best Director award winner, Abdullah Mohammad Saad.
Also among the winners was Hong Kong actor Simon Yam, who received the honourary Cinema Legend Award for his lifelong dedication to acting and the arts.
“I mean my passion it has never changed, it’s still making lots of movies. The award given to me it means it’s a passion of me, I love being, making movies and I love having lots of crew, the happiness and I enjoy very much,” says Yam.
The twelve day long Asian Feature Film Competition featured over 160 titles from Singapore and from around the world. — Reuters
