Song Of Silence, Jai Bhim Comrade take top prizes at HKIFF
BY LIZ SHACKLETON | 4 APRIL 2012
Chen Zhuo’s Song Of Silence took the Firebird Award for best feature in the Young Cinema awards of this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), while Anand Patwardhan’s Jai Bhim Comrade took the Firebird documentary prize.
Song Of Silence, Chen’s debut feature, is a naturalistic drama revolving around a family in China’s Hunan province. Jai Bhim Comrade, which Patwardhan worked on for 14 years, explores the caste system in India.
The feature jury prize was awarded to Japanese filmmaker Kimura Shoko’s The End Of Puberty, while the same award in the documentary category was handed to Petr Lom’s Back To The Square about the Egyptian revolution.
In the short film competition, the Firebird Award went to Yamamura Koji’s Muybridge’s Strings, while the jury prize went to Cecile Ducrocq’s Everyone Says I Love You and the special prize went to Hong Kong filmmaker Lam Suk-ching’s Acid.
The FIPRESCI prize was awarded to Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini’s The Mirror Never Lies and the Signis Award went to Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar. Signis special mentions were given to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s I Wish and Valerie Donzell’s Declaration Of War.