In December, Macao-born director António Sanmarful’s film Heritople was named the best documentary at the Bangkok Movie Awards (BMA), a monthly film competition held by the eponymous organisation.
Sanmarful’s win means his hour-long documentary is now in the running for the organisation’s more prestigious Golden Elephant Awards, whose winners will be unveiled during an annual gala competition in Bangkok later this year.
Centred around Macao’s multicultural history and heritage, Heritople is a trilingual documentary that features archival footage from the 1999 handover, as well as interviews from eight Macao locals, including the head of the Na Tcha Temple Association, Harry Kwah Hou Ieong, and the president of the Macanese Cultural Research Association, Elisabela Larrea.
“It always feels good to have our work recognised,” Sanmarful told Macao News, adding that Heritople – a portmanteau of the words “heritage” and “people” – was the culmination of “weeks of shooting” and “around 200 hours of editing.”
The filmmaker added that he did not expect to win but was instead concerned simply about whether or not his documentary would be viewed by an audience.
[See more: ‘Macao has always been a place of transition,’ says local filmmaker António Sanmarful]
Sanmarful has also submitted Heritople to other film festivals around the world, although he points out that they “are still in the process of selection.”
Heritople was screened to a full house last year at Cinematheque Macao. Further screenings are likely in the works, including at film festivals in other Lusophone countries, according to the International Institute of Macau (IIM), the organisation that produced the documentary.
Inaugurated in 2023, the BMA awards films across almost 60 categories. According to the organisers, competing films are selected by movie scholars and jurors from Southeast Asia.
Sanmarful, meanwhile, says he is currently conducting research for another documentary.
