10th Asian Film Awards
Johnnie To and Sean Lau (front row, third and fifth from left) are serving as Jury President and celebrity juror of the 10th Asian Film Awards (Photo provided by the Asian Film Awards Academy)
The 10th Asian Film Awards (AFA), organised by the Asian Film Awards Academy, will be held on 17th March in the Venetian Theatre of The Venetian Macao Resort-Hotel. For this edition, 36 films have been nominated from nine countries and regions totally 77 nominations in all for 15 available awards, including the new award of Best Sound. Skilful recording, editing and mixing of sound is an often unnoticed but critical element in filmmaking and this award is being introduced to recognize excellence in the field and encourage talent.
This year, the AFA received almost 1,600 submissions from 32 countries and regions. The wide-ranging entries include adapted screenplays, period epics, romance, brotherhood, crime, gangs, politics, comedy, youth and other genres of filmmaking.
World-renowned Hong Kong director Johnnie To Kei-fung will serve as this year's Jury President to lead a jury team of 12 respected film industry professionals, festival programmers and critics from all over the world, as well as two celebrity jurors, Hong Kong actor Sean Lau Ching-wan and Mainland Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan.
This year also marks the first collaboration with social media Twitter. All the guests witnessing the red carpet parade and ceremony can now share their behind-the-scenes insights with the world through a specially tailored mobile app called Twitter Mirror.
Inaugurated in 2007, the Asian Film Awards celebrates excellence in Asian cinema through the annual presentation of awards to talent and films that make up the dynamic film industries of Asia. Presented in Hong Kong for its first seven years, the Awards moved to one of Asia's fastest growing entertainment hubs, Macao, in 2014 - one step closer to its long-term plan of being held in different Asian cities to reflect its broad reach across the entire region.
In 2013, three main Asian film festivals - Busan, Hong Kong and Tokyo - joined together to create the non-profit Asian Film Awards Academy. Members of the AFA Academy are drawn from all past nominees and winners of the Asian Film Awards. Members vote for the Asian Film Awards.
For more details of the event, please visit the AFA website at: www.asianfilmawards.asia.