The Dragons And Tigers Award For Young Cinema, sponsored by Brad Birarda ($5,000)
The award is given to a creative and innovative film from East Asia, made early in the director's career, which has not yet won significant international recognition.
This year's jury comprised the film director JANG Sun-Woo from South Korea, the film critic Kong RITHDEE from Thailand and the film producer, critic and academic Colin MacCABE from Britain. They considered eight films in competition and reached the following decisions:
A Special Mention is given to the film
Obbah: A Girl's Elder Brother by KIM Jong-Guk from South Korea.
“An extremely impressive formal experiment. One 63-minute take captures both the complexity of a particular urban situation and the more general features of modern Korean society.”
The Dragons and Tigers Award for 2007 is divided equally between two films, both independent productions from China. The prize money of C$10,000 is also divided equally between the two films. In alphabetical order, the two films are:
Fujian Blue by Robin WENG (WENG Shouming)
“An extremely realistic film about contemporary China, showing why and how so many present-day Chinese try to emigrate illegally from the southern coastal province of Fujian. The film is also a portrait of the current generation of young people: boys and girls floating on the waves of globalisation.”
And
Mid-Afternoon Barks by ZHANG Yuedong
“An extremely inventive structure meshes with witty, well-observed dialogue to produce an oblique but accurate view of modern China. The play between image and soundtrack demonstrates the young director's masterly grasp of cinema.”
The awards were presented in the Empire Granville 7 Cinemas in Vancouver on the evening of 4 October. Zhang Yuedong and Kim Jong-Guk received their awards in person, while Robin Weng's award was received by his producer Lin Fan.
Don't worry if you missed it! The VIFF is pleased to announce that festival fans will have the opportunity to see the films, as programmers have added additional screenings:
Fujian Blue on Friday, October 5 at 1:15pm at Vancity Theatre
Mid-Afternoon Barks on Saturday, October 6 at 10:45am at Vancity Theatre
For the 14th year running, The Festival is pleased once again to offer the Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema to a new director from the Asia-Pacific region. It is given to a creative and innovative film, made early in the director's career, which has not yet won significant international recognition. Yet again, we're hugely grateful to Brad Birarda of Research Capital for continuing to sponsor this award, and the series as a whole. And we are doubly happy to thank Brad even more heartily for upping the prize money this year from $5,000 to $10,000!
Our past winners have been: Furumaya Tomoyuki for This Window is Yours (1994), Kore-eda Hirokazu for Maborosh i (1995), ex aequo Hong Sang-Soo for The Day a Pig Fell into the Well and Zhang Ming for Rainclouds Over Wushan (1996), Lee Chang-Dong for Green Fish (1997), Jia Zhangke for Xiao Wu (1998), Hayakawa Wataru for 7/25 (1999), Wisit Sasanatieng for Tears of the Black Tiger (2000), Hsiao Ya-Chuan for Mirror Image (2001), Andrew Y-S Cheng for Shanghai Panic (2002), Diao Yinan for Uniform (2003), Takahashi Izumi for The Soup, One Morning (2004), Liu Jiayin for Ox Hide (2005) and John Torres for Todo Todo Teros (2006). The list of filmmakers awarded Special Mentions by our juries is almost equally distinguished.
This year's jury considered a line-up of eight films, listed below. The prize—including a $10,000 award to the director—was announced before the 6:45 p.m. screening of Dead Time in Granville 7 on Thursday, October 4.
The nominees were:
Bangkok Time (Thailand, dir Santi TAEPANICH)
Bare-Assed Japan (Japan, dir ISHII Yuya)
Dimmer (South Korea, dir KIM Sam-Ryeok)
Fujian Blue (China, dir Robin WENG)
Mid-Afternoon Barks (China, dir ZHANG Yuedong)
Obbah: A Girl's Elder Brother (South Korea, dir KIM Jong-Guk)
This World of Ours (Japan, dir NAKAJIMA Ryo)
Timber Gang (China, dir YU Guangyi)
The nominated films can be identified by the stylized Dragons & Tigers logo within the online film note.
The Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema is presented by 
Click here to read about the jury for this award.
