Annemarie Jacir’s period drama Palestine 36 was awarded the top prize of the Tokyo International Film Festival, the Tokyo Grand Prix and Governor of Tokyo Award, at the close of the festival on November 5.
The film, which is Palestine’s entry for the Best International Feature category of the Oscars, tells the story of the Arab revolt against British colonial rule in Palestine in the 1930s. The Tokyo award came with a cash prize of $19,500 (JPY3M).
Rithy Panh’s documentary We Are The Fruits Of The Forest was awarded the Special Jury Prize, which came with a cash award of $3,300 (JPY500,000). The film follows the Bunong people, the largest indigenous highland ethnic group in Cambodia, as they struggle to reconcile their traditional practices with the modern world.
Best Director was won jointly by Zhang Lu for Mothertongue, about a failed actress who returns to her hometown in Sichuan, and Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis for Heads or Tails?, about a woman’s flirtation with American cowboys in Northern Italy in the early 20th Century. Mothertongue also took the Best Actor award for Wang Chuanjun’s performance.
Best Actress went to Naomi Kawase and Momoko Fukuchi for their performances playing a mother and daughter in Japanese drama Echoes Of Motherhood, the third in a trilogy directed by Ryutaro Nakagawa. The Award for Best Artistic Contribution was presented to Teona Strugar Mitevska’s Mother, a co-production between Belgium and North Macedonia, while the Audience Award went to Japanese filmmaker Sakashita Yuichiro’s Blonde.
The festival’s main competition jury was headed by Carlo Chatrian, and also included Japanese actor and director Takumi Saitoh; Chinese director Vivian Qu, Taiwan-based French film editor Matthieu Laclau and Taiwanese actress Gwei Lun-mei.
In the Asian Future competition for emerging filmmakers, the Asian Future Best Film Award, with a cash prize of $6,500 (JPY1M) went to Halo, directed by Korea’s Roh Young-wan.
This year, the festival also launched an Asian Students’ Film Competition, which screened 15 live-action and animated films under 60 minutes from film schools across Asia. The Best Film Award went to Floating, while the Asian Students’ Film Jury Prize was awarded jointly to Forever And A Day and Reviving The Engine. Rithy Panh headed the jury which also included Cannes’ Christian Jeune and Japanese actress Tao Okamoto.
As previously reported, TIFF also presented the Kurosawa Akira Award to Chloé Zhao (Hamnet) and Japanese filmmaker Lee Sang-il (Kokuho). Lifetime Achievement Awards went to Japanese director Yoji Yamada and actress Sayuri Yoshinaga. The TIFF Ethical Film Award went to Brazilian production White House, directed by Luciano Vidigal.
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