Georgian filmmaker Levan Koguashvili’s “Guria” was named best film at the 19th Asia Pacific Screen Awards, handed out Oct. 30 at The Star Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Koguashvili shared the prize with fellow producers Olena Yershova and Boris Frumin. The film was made across seven countries: Georgia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Türkiye, Norway and Saudi Arabia.
Thai director Sompot Chidgasornpongse won best director for “9 Temples to Heaven,” a co-production involving Thailand, Singapore, France, Norway, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Qatar. Myanmar’s Aung Phyoe received a special mention in the directing category for “Fruit Gathering.” Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat took the Jury Grand Prize for “No Good Men.” This year’s field comprised 36 nominated films from 32 countries and regions. Nepalese actor Pushpa Thing Lama won best performance for “Elephants in the Fog,” and South Korea’s Sim Su-bin was named best new performer for “The World Before.” The screenplay award went to Rakan Mayasi, Wahid Ajmi and Pôl Seif for “Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep,” backed by Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Vietnamese cinematographer Nguyễn Vinh Phúc won for “Hearing.” New Zealand’s Paloma Schneideman took best youth film for “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” produced by Vicky Pope and Thomas Coppell. The animation prize went to “The Violinist,” a co-production between Singapore, Spain and Italy that was co-directed by Singapore’s Ervin Han and Spain’s Raúl García. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInness won best documentary for “One in a Million,” a U.K.-U.S. film that follows the life of a Syrian refugee.
Isabelle Kalandar, who both directed and produced “Another Birth,” received the Cultural Diversity Award for the Tajikistan, U.S. and Qatar collaboration. Gowtham earned the Young Cinema Award, given with NETPAC, for “Members of the Problematic Family.” Malaysian filmmaker Haziqah Azemi won the Forum Filmmaker Award, run with The Post Lounge Group, for her project “Garek.” The story centers on a woman whose relationship is tested when she faces religious persecution after becoming pregnant outside marriage. Azemi, who took part in the Griffith Film School and APSA Regional Reels program, came back to APSA this year after developing the project with mentoring from APSA Academy member Yulia Evina Bhara.
Tracey Vieira, chair of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, said: “From ‘Guria’ and ‘No Good Men’ to ‘Elephants in the Fog,’ this year’s winners remind us of the extraordinary stories emerging from our region and the importance of creating opportunities for these voices to be recognized internationally.” Veteran Indian producer Bobby Bedi was handed the FIAPF Award for outstanding contribution to film in the Asia Pacific. Luis Alberto Scalella, president of FIAPF, said: “Through landmark films such as ‘Bandit Queen’ and ‘Fire,’ he has championed powerful stories that have challenged audiences and resonated far beyond India.” The ceremony also revealed five projects selected for the 2026 MPA APSA Academy Film Fund, each of which will get a $10,000 grant funded entirely by the Motion Picture Association. They are Payal Kapadia’s “A Memory of Being Here” (India), produced by Thomas Hakim; Davy Chou’s “My Father’s Glory” (France, Cambodia), produced by Charlotte Vincent; Taifeng Liu’s “A Place in the Sun” (China), produced by Janet (Yan Yan) Wu; Nicole Midori Woodford’s “Incarnation” (Singapore, Japan), produced by Anthony Chen; and Zhanana Kurmasheva’s documentary “The Story of My Shirt” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Chile), produced by Banu Ramazanova.
Three of the five projects are directed by women. Chen returns to the fund after working on “We Are All Strangers,” which received a grant in 2023 and was among this year’s nominees. Urmila Venugopalan, president and managing director, Asia Pacific, at the Motion Picture Association, said the success of films such as “9 Temples to Heaven,” which received MPA APSA Academy Film Fund support in 2021, “shows the importance of supporting filmmakers and their stories from the earliest stages of development.” Every APSA nominee, along with members of the nominations councils and juries, joins the APSA Academy, whose president is Australian screen veteran Jack Thompson.
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