TOKYO FILMeX 2016

TOKYO FILMeX 2016 Awards

The Jury of the TOKYO FILMeX 2016 competition, consisted of Tony RAYNS (The Chairperson of the Jury: U.K. / Film Critic, Festival Programmer), Angeli BAYANI (Philippines/ Actress, Voice talent), PARK Jung-Bum (Korea /Film Director), MATSUOKA Tamaki (Japan / Researcher of Asian Cinema) and Catherine DUSSART (France / Producer, CDP), awards the following prizes.

Grand Prize　

“Life After Life”　ZHANG Hanyi (China / 2016 / 80 min.)

The winning film’s director will receive 1,000,000 yen.
A remarkable original first feature by a man who wanted to be a footballer before he became a director! This film explores the slow, painful death of villages in the Chinese countryside ― without sentimentality or easy nostalgia. And it does so with a startling gender twist.
Each image burns itself into the memory.
The FILMeX Grand Prix for 2016 goes to ZHI FAN YE MAO (Life After Life) by Zhang Hanyi.

Special Jury Prize　

“Burning Birds”　Sanjeewa PUSHPAKUMARA (France, Sri Lanka / 2016 / 84 min.)

The winning film’s director will receive 500,000 yen.
This Film is a loud cry of pain from a cruel civil war of the late 1980s. It shares the perspective of one woman, a wife who loses her husband and a mother whose struggle to hold her family together ultimately costs her the respect of her children.
An under-reported story from yesterday is made urgently relevant in the modern world.
Our Special Jury Prize goes to “Burning Birds”, directed by Senjeewa Pushpakumara.

Special Mention

“The World of Us”　YOON Ga-eun (Korea / 2015 / 95 min.)
For her ability to tell a story and express the feelings of her young characters in a very sensitive and simple way. The director has successfully used close-up shots of the children in a way that captures our heart. To encourage a very promising debut of a young female director, we give a Special Mention to “The World of Us” by YOON Ga-eun.

Audience Award

“The World of Us”　YOON Ga-eun (Korea / 2015 / 95 min.)

Student Jury Prize

“Ordinary People”　Eduardo ROY Jr (Philipine / 2016 / 107 min.)

What is “normal”?
The concept of normality hangs around us for as long as we live.
However, this film makes us aware that this concept is merely a subjective one.
Love, and a parent’s love for their child, are universal emotions.
This film depicts emotions that we all share, regardless of the environments in which we were born and raised, and most of all, its view of the world is utterly absorbing. What’s more, it stresses the importance of entertainment that also raises awareness of important issues.
We hope that viewers will reconsider the meaning of what it is to be “normal” through this superb film.
What is “normal”?

Student Jury：
TAKENAKA Sadato, KATSU Rika, and SOGO Kazuya

Antony Rayns (born 1948) is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. Much inspired in his youth by the films of Kenneth Anger, he wrote for the underground publication Cinema Rising (its name inspired by Anger's Scorpio Rising) before contributing to the Monthly Film Bulletin from the December 1970 issue until its demise in 1991. He has written for the British Film Institute's magazine Sight & Sound since the 1970s, and also contributed extensively to Time Out and to Melody Maker in the late 1970s.
Known for his expertise in East Asian cinema, he provides commentary tracks for DVD releases of Asian films. He coordinated the Dragons and Tigers competition for Asian films at the Vancouver International Film Festival from 1988 to 2006. In the 1980s, he presented a series called New Chinese Cinema on British television, showing (sometimes rare) films and biographies of eminent Chinese directors. He has also worked as a translator for English subtitles on films from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. For example, he wrote the English subtitles for the films of Huang Ming-chuan in the 1990s in Taiwan.
He wrote the screenplay for Away with Words, a feature film directed by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, starring ASANO Tadanobu. He has written books about SUZUKI Seijun, Wong Kar-wai and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Angeli is a Filipina actress and voice talent, who began her career in theater. She is best known for starring in Philippine art-house and independent films, notably those by Lav DIAZ, such as “Melancholia” (08) and “Norte, the End of History” (13), for which she won the 2014 Gawad Urian Award for Best Actress. She also appeared in the Camera d'Or-winning Singaporean film “Ilo Ilo” (13) by Anthony CHEN, where she was nominated as Best Actress at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in 2013.

Born in 1976, Seoul, Korea. After seeing KITANO Takeshi’s “Hana-bi”(98) while serving in the military, he decided become a director and began directing and producing short films from his junior year of college. With his first short film “Templementary” (00) and the second short “125 Jeon Seung-Chul” (08), he was granted numerous prizes at many prestigious film festivals. Then he went on to serve as First Assistant Director on LEE Chang-dong’s film “Poetry”(10) (Best Screenplay at 2010 Cannes Film Festival) and in 2009 he completed his debut film “The Journals of Musan” (11). Presents his 2nd film, “Alive”(14) tells the story of a man working in a construction site of an unfavorable condition and being worn out as times goes by.

Born in 1949, she was educated at Hindi Dept. of Osaka Univ. of Foreign Studies (now Osaka Univ.). In 1976 she started to introduce and promote popular Indian cinema in Japan and later became a researcher of the history of Asian cinema. Besides working as a part-time lecturer of Reitaku Univ. and Kokushikan Univ. she is also making Japanese subtitles for Indian films such as “Muthu”, ”3 inidots”, ”pk” etc. The author of "Asia: Eiga No Miyako（Asia: Capital of Cinema）" (1998) and co-author of "The Perfect Guide of Indian Cinema" (2015) & others.

Jury / Awards

The Chairperson of the jury

The jury members

Audience Award

Student Jury Prize