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MPAA CHAIRMAN & CEO CHARLES RIVKIN CELEBRATES THE GLOBAL POWER OF STORYTELLING AT ASIA PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS

November 29, 2018

2018 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund recipients announced

BRISBANE/SINGAPORE, NOV 29, 2018: MPAA Chairman & CEO Charles Rivkin delivered remarks at the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Brisbane today, highlighting the region’s diverse stories and innovative productions. The MPA also announced the 2018 selections for the APSA Academy Film Fund, which bolsters emerging filmmakers and previously supported award-winning films such as Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation and Annemarie Jacir’s celebrated family drama, Wajib.

“With more than 70 countries represented and a vibrant tapestry of cultures and stories, the ASPA is a global celebration of film,” noted Rivkin. “The Asia Pacific region is producing so many stories that resonate with audiences in countries and communities everywhere. The storytellers we honor tonight, and the talented filmmakers we’re proud to support with MPA APSA Academy Film Fund, are shining examples of how our creative industry not only entertains but inspires.”

Announcing the 2018 recipients of the APSA Film Fund, President and Managing Director of MPA Asia Pacific, Mike Ellis, said, “Our goal is to help filmmakers at the early stages of script development and support their creative efforts to bring their stories to life. After nine years, thirty-six projects funded, and dozens of festival awards, the APSA Film Fund is a great success. We look forward to seeing this year’s incredible projects on the screen.”

MPA APSA Academy Film Fund Chair Andrew Pike O.A.M., said, “With a record number of submissions, the Fund is more than ever a real eye-opener to an amazing diversity of ideas, experiences, histories and lifestyles that take us far outside the world with which we are familiar. It is an expanded universe we discover through cinema, and the Fund is an incredibly powerful catalyst in that discovery for us.”

Selected from 123 entries by APSA Academy members from 34 countries and areas across the Asia Pacific and beyond, the 2018 recipients of the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund are:

  • Producer Ifa Isfansyah, director Kamila Andini (Indonesia) for Yuni
  • Producer Olga Khlasheva, director Adilkhan Yerzhanov (Kazakhstan) for Hell is Empty and All The Devils Are Here
  • Producer Mai Meksawan, director Uruphong Raksasad (Thailand) for Worship
  • Director, producer, screenwriter Semih Kaplanoğlu (Turkey) for Asli

The success stories of projects funded by the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund are many and varied:

  • The first completed film, from the inaugural round of the Fund in 2010, was Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation which went on to win almost 50 awards internationally including an Oscar®, Golden Globe®, Golden Bear and APSA for Best Film.
  • 2011 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund recipient Maryam Ebrahimi’s No Burqas Behind Bars was recognised worldwide, winning awards at the major festivals around the globe, including the biggest TV award in Europe – the Prix Europa Award for the Best TV Documentary, and an International Emmy Award.
  • Shawkat Amin Korki’s Memories on Stone began its development as a 2011 Fund recipient and since completion, has garnered more than a dozen international awards including the 2014 APSA UNESCO Award. The film had an official screening at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, at the MPAA headquarters in Washington and was Iraq’s official submission for the 88th Academy Awards® for the Best Foreign-Language Film.
  • Annemarie Jacir’s celebrated family drama Wajib, a 2015 Fund recipient, premiered at the 2017 Locarno Film Festival. It later won Best Fiction Feature and Best Actor at the Dubai International Film Festival and received an APSA nomination for Best Actor (Mohammad and Saleh Bakri). It also won 4 other major international awards and was Palestine’s official submission to the 90th Academy Awards© for Best Foreign Language Film.
  • Payman Maadi’s feature Bomb, A Love Story,  a 2011 Fund recipient, set in Tehran under Iraqi bombardment in 1987, World Premiered at the Fajr Film Festival in February 2018, the leading festival in its native Iran, where it won the Special Jury Prize. Maadi, wrote, directed, and starred in the film, where he is reunited with his A Separation co-star Leila Hatami.

The MPA has supported the work of APSA Academy members including Asghar Farhadi, Rolf de Heer, Lee Chang-dong, Zeynep Özbatur Atakan,Mohammad Rasoulof, Cliff Curtis, and the first female director from Saudi Arabia Haifaa Al Mansour.

2018 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund jury:

Chair:  Andrew Pike O.A.M. is a legend of the Australian film industry. He is an award-winning documentarian, as well as a film historian, author and the founder of Ronin Films, responsible for helping to bring films such as Strictly Ballroom and Shine to the world.

Experienced film festival programmer, Kiki Fung, is a member of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and a committee member of the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. Her recent essays are published in Wong Ain Ling’s The Cinema of Wong Kar-wai and HKIFF Society’s Naruse Mikio, 110th Anniversary.

Korean producer, Young Kim, President of Miru Pictures, co-producer of A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) from director Kim Jeewoon, with a long track record working for Showbox, the Korean Academy of Film Arts, CJ CGV (CGV Arthouse) and currently a visiting professor at KAFA and a Professor at AFiS Asian Film School in Busan.

Images from the event are available here.

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About the MPA:

Promoting & Protecting Screen Communities in Asia Pacific

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Motion Picture Association International (MPA-I) represent the interests of the six international producers and distributors of filmed entertainment. To do so, they promote and protect the intellectual property rights of these companies and conduct public awareness programs to highlight to movie fans around the world the importance of content protection. These activities have helped to transform entire markets benefiting film and television industries in each country including foreign and local filmmakers alike.

The organizations act on behalf of the members of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc (MPAA) which include; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal City Studios LLC; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The MPA and the MPA-I have worldwide operations which are directed from their head offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. and overseen in the Asia Pacific by a team based in Singapore. For more information about the MPA and the MPA-I, please visit www.mpa-apac.org.

 

For more information, please contact

Stephen Jenner

MPA Asia-Pacific
(65) 6253 1033

June Tan

MPA Asia-Pacific
(65) 6253 1033