China Film Directors’ Guild omits awards for best film, best director
BEIJING: The 5th China Film Directors’ Guild has decided to not give an award in either the Best Film and Best Director categories.
Explaining the reasoning behind the decision on behalf of the jury, director Feng Xiaogang said that while Chinese cinema has achieved great commercial success, it has slipped considerably in terms of artistic pursuit and humanistic spirit.
“This was a decision that the jury reached prudently. It was an expression of a fi lm-maker’s artistic conscience,” Feng said, “The Directors’ Guild Award should not be about entertaining ourselves and making everybody happy. It should create a higher standard that everyone would work hard to meet. It should be a standard that would make fi lmmakers feel noble.”
The nominees are voted by all 322 members of the Directors’ Guild, but the winners are determined by a nine-member jury. This year’s fi nal jury members were Tian Zhuangzhuang, Wang Xiaoshuai, Xu Jinglei, Feng, Yin Li, Huang Jianzhong, Du Jiayi, He Ping and Zhang Yibai.
The jury did give out awards to directors in other categories. Peter Chan won the award for Best Director from Hong Kong and Taiwan for American Dreams in China, Li Ruijun won the Best Young Director award for Fly with the Crane and musician Cui Jian won a Special Jury Prize for his feature directorial debut Blue Sky Bones.
Awarded the Lifetime Achievement was Teng Wenji.
Xu Zheng won the Best Actor award for Ning Hao’s No Man’s Land.