Payal Kapadia’s Cannes award winner ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s powerful ‘Writing With Fire’ and PS Vinothraj’s debut Tamil film ‘Koozhangal’ (Pebbles) have received top nominations at the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Awards to be held in Australia.
While Kapadia’s film has received the Best Feature Film nomination, ‘Writing With Fire’ has received the Best Documentary Feature nomination. On the other hand, ‘Koozhangal’ has received nominations for Achievement in Direction for Vinothraj and Achievement in Cinematography for Vignesh Kumular and Che Parthiban.
In total, 38 films from 25 Asia Pacific countries and areas have received nominations in various categories and the winners will be announced next month at the 14th Asia Pacific Screen Awards ceremony at Gold Coast.
Kapadia and Vinothraj will compete with masters like Ryusuke Hamaguchi of Japan and Asghar Farhadi of Iran in their categories. Hamaguchi’s ‘Drive My Car’ and Farhadi’s ‘A Hero (Ghahreman)’, both Cannes winners, have received nominations for Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Best Screenplay and Best Performance by an Actor.
Other films to receive nominations for best feature film are Natalya Nazarova’s ‘The Pencil (Prostoy karandash)’ from Russia and Mohammad Rasoulof’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner ‘There is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)’ from Iran.
In the Best Documentary Feature Film category, ‘Writing With Fire’ will compete with Vitaly Mansky’s ‘Gorbachev. Heaven’ (Latvia, Czech Republic), Eliane Raheb’s ‘Miguel’s War (Aanaf Hob)’ (Lebanon, Spain, Germany), Hogir Hirori’s ‘Sabaya’ (Sweden), and Mohammed Abugeth and Daniel Carsenty’s ‘The Devil’s Drivers’ (Lebanon, Qatar, France, Germany).
Asia Pacific Screen Awards will also award films in three special categories, the Cultural Diversity Award under the patronage of UNESCO, the Young Cinema Award in partnership with NETPAC and GFS, and the FIAPF Award for Contribution to Asia Pacific Cinema.
