Sweet Country named Best Feature Film at the 11th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) ceremony in Brisbane.
Sweet Country was produced by David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin and directed by Warwick Thornton, all of whom were there at the Brisbane Convention Centre to accept the award on the night. It is a film based on true story of co-producer and writer David Tranter. The win makes APSA history with Thornton becoming the first director to have two films win Best Feature Film following Samson and Delilah’s win in 2009. He is also the only Australian director ever to have a film win in this category.
Overall the Asia Pacific region continues to bring extraordinary stories and talent with a highly original slant.” The Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the region’s highest accolade in film, honour cinematic excellence and the cultural diversity of the world’s fastest-growing film region: comprising 70 countries and areas, 4.5 billion people, and responsible for half of the world’s film output.
In 2017 also marks the first ever APSA win for Georgia in the 11-year history of the event, films from both Georgia and Russian Federation have won three APSAs including a Jury Grand Prize.
Films from Australia and India have won two APSAs each. 42 films from 25 countries and areas of the Asia Pacific region received APSA nominations in 2017, including the first nomination for a film from Bhutan.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said: “Winning an Asia Pacific Screen Award is a huge achievement and, on behalf of the City of Brisbane, I’d like to congratulate the winners and thank them for sharing their extraordinary stories. I’d like to commend Best Feature Film winner the Australian-made Sweet Country and director Warwick Thornton, who took Australia’s only other win in this category in 2009 for his debut feature Samson and Delilah.
Brisbane is honoured to be part of this journey and delighted to further strengthen ties with our neighbours in the culturally rich region of the Asia Pacific.
” The Cultural Diversity Award under the patronage of UNESCO was awarded to Dede (Georgia, Croatia, Netherlands, Qatar, UK), filmed on location in the historic UNESCO World Heritage province of Svaneti and directed by Mariam Khatchvani, who accepted the award on the night.
Brisbane is honoured to be part of this journey and delighted to further strengthen ties with our neighbours in the culturally rich region of the Asia Pacific.
” The Cultural Diversity Award under the patronage of UNESCO was awarded to Dede (Georgia, Croatia, Netherlands, Qatar, UK), filmed on location in the historic UNESCO World Heritage province of Svaneti and directed by Mariam Khatchvani, who accepted the award on the night.
Scary Mother (Sashishi Deda; Georgia, Estonia) was awarded both the APSA for Best Performance by an Actress for Nata Murvanidze and one of two Jury Grand Prizes presented by the International Jury, to Ana Urushadze for her direction of Scary Mother.
Newton won two Asia Pacific Screen Awards, with star Rajkummar Rao in Brisbane to accept the APSA for Best Performance by an Actor,
Achievement in Directing APSA has been won by Russia’s Andrey Zvyagintsev for Loveless (Nelyubov; Russian Federation, Belgium, France, Germany)
Achievement in Cinematography are Pyotr Duhovskoy and Timofey Lobov for The Bottomless Bag (Meshok Bez Dna)
The second Jury Grand Prize was awarded to Russian actor Aleksandr Yatsenko for his performance in Arrhythmia (Aritmiya; Russian Federation, Finland, Germany).
