Argentinean director Emiliano Torres’s Spanish-language “The Winter” won the best film award at the 1st International Film Festival &
Awards • Macao (IFFAM) on Tuesday.
The awards ceremony, which was held at the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM), marked the end of the six-day film-fest, which was co-organised by the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) and the Macau Films & Television Productions and Culture Association (MFTPA).
According to a statement from the festival’s organising committee, 12 films were in competition for a total of eight awards and “The Winter” took the “Best Film” award.
“The Winter” (“El Invierno”) tells the story of an old foreman of a Patagonian ranch being forced to retire and replaced by a younger man. As winter comes, the two men fight to survive.
The “Best Director” award went to Portuguese director Marco Martins for “Saint George” (“Sao Jorge”), about a boxer’s struggle during the country’s recent debt crisis. Portuguese actor Nuno Lopes who plays the boxer in “Saint George” won Best Actor on Tuesday night, while Best Actress went to British actress Lyndsey Marshal from Adam Smith’s “Trespass Against Us” about a man attempting to escape the criminal ways of his outlaw family.
The award for Best New Young Actor or Actress went to Jennifer Yu in local film “Sisterhood”. Directed by Tracy Choi Ian Sin, “Sisterhood” looks at the relationship between two masseuses during the 1990s in Macau. The film also won the “Macau Audience Choice Award”, voted most popular film by the festival’s spectators.
In the “Cinefantasy International Short Film Screenwriting Competition” jointly organised by the IFFAM Organising Committee and the International Council for Films, Television and Audiovisual Communication (ICFT), there were a total of 168 qualified submissions from 44 places worldwide. The two final winners were Ilashree and Manasri Goswami from India with “Legacy of Dreams” and Alessa Ellefson from Belgium with “The Seeker’s Key”.
(Macau News / Macau Post Daily)
