MACAU, Dec 11 — Malaysian filmmakers, Liew Seng Tat and Pete Teo, won the Huace Pictures Award in the International Film Festival and Awards Macau (IFFAM) Project Market Awards, much to the surprise of the duo.
The project by Liew and Teo was one out of 14 feature films selected to participate in the IFFAM Project Market this year.
A total of 14 international projects were selected to participate in IFFAM Project Market, which is a three-day programme consisting of meetings for the filmmakers with industry professionals and experts.
Three awards were presented for the IFFAM Project Market Award with Ivanhoe Pictures, Huace Pictures and Hairun Pictures as the award sponsors.
Each award winner walked away with a cash prize of US$10,000 (RM40,723) each.
“We didn’t come here expecting to win anything, our main goals was to meet people in the industry,” said Teo immediately after accepting the award.
He added that he would not consider it a win, but more of an honour.
“The other projects presented were really strong,” he said.
Liew said being exposed to other international filmmakers was a humbling experience.
“It makes us think about what we do and we will work harder after this,” he said.
The duo’s project, titled The Girl With No Head, is about Mei, a decapitated girl who reattaches her own head and resurrects herself but loses her memory.
The story slowly unravels as Mei goes in search of her identity until it all comes to a head when she meets a civil servant who is trying to save his failing marriage.
Teo said they will go into pre-production after this and hope to start production by the end of next year.
“There’s a lot of interest for it, not only locally, but also regionally,” he said.
A psychological horror film, Mihara, by New York-based writer and director Jacqueline Castel and producer Pier Harrison won the Ivanhoe Pictures Award in the IFFAM Project Market Award.
The Last Savage by director Liam O’Donnell and producer Matthew Chausse won the Hairun Pictures Award.
Commenting on the projects presented in Project Market, one of the jury Todd Brown said they were very impressed with the projects this year.
“In Project Market, we look for a balance of commercial viability and also critically acclaimed works,” he said.
He added that the feedback on project market has been positive and that this component of IFFAM will continue next year.
This is the second year of IFFAM. The Project Market was first introduced in the inaugural IFFAM 2016.
