‘Pop Aye’ wins top award at 2017 Zurich Film Festival
ZURICH: Made-in- Singapore movie ‘ Pop Aye’ has won the top award at the 2017 Zurich Film Festival.
Kirsten Tan’s movie won the prestigious Golden Eye for best film in the international feature film competition.
The film is Singapore’s entry for the Oscars and has already won the world cinema dramatic special jury award for screenwriting at this year’s Sundance, as well as the VPRO big screen award at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Set in Thailand, it stars Thaneth Warakulnukroh as a down and out architect who is reunited with his childhood elephant and embarks on a road trip across the Thai countryside.
In the same category, ‘Custody’ by Xavier Legrand and ‘ Under The Tree’ by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson earned a special mention.
Rahul Jain’s ‘Machines’ won the international documentary prize, with Thomas Haemmerli’s ‘I Am Gentrification’, ‘Confessions Of A Scoundrel’ and Pau Ortiz’s ‘ The Other Side Of The Wall’ earning special mentions.
Both international feature and documentary awards come with a 25,000 Swiss Francs ( nearly RM108,000) cash prize.
Lisa Brühlmann’s Swiss coming-of-age film ‘Blue My Mind’ won the best film in the focus: Switzerland, Germany, Austria Competition category. The award comes with a US$ 20,433 ( about RM86,000) prize. The film also won the critics’ choice award for best debut feature in competition.
Mark Grieco’s provocative amazon rainforest documentary ‘A River Below’ won the audience award.