Vietnam, PHL, Spain top winners at World Premieres Filmfest

FILM FROM Vietnam, the Philippines, and Spain took home the top awards at the World Premieres Film Festival’s Main Competition on Sunday night.

The awards ceremony was held at the grounds of the Film Development Council of the Philippines in Kalaw St., Manila on July 3.

Dinh Tuan Vu’s Yen’s Life of Vietnam received the Grand Festival Prize; the Philippines’ Gutierrez Mangansakan II’s Daughters of the Three Tailed Banner took the Grand Jury Prize; and Chema de la Pena’s Love Above All Things from Spain, bagged the Technical Grand Prize.

Tunku Mona Riza’s Redha ( Malaysia) received the Special Festival Prize; and Camille Fontaine, director of By Accident (France), won Special Jury Prize for Best Direction.

Meanwhile, co- productions by the Philippines with foreign filmmakers brought home all the trophies in the ASEAN Skies category. Tom and Sam McKeith’s Beast bested all other entries for prizes for Best Film, Best Male Performance (Chad McKinney) and Technical Achievement. Louie Ignacio’s Laut received the Special Jury Prize while Angela Barotia was awarded the Best Female Performance prize for her work in Patrick Daly and Joel Fendelman’s Remittance. Films in this category were co-productions with foreign filmmakers: with Australia for Beast, and the USA for Remittance.

The Best Pictures in the Filipino New Cinema category were EDSA (1st place, directed by Alvin Yapan) and Rahyan Carlos’s Ringgo: The Dog Shooter (2nd place) also bagged most of the awards in their category, bringing five and four trophies home, respectively; followed by Mel Chionglo’s Iadya Mo Kami, which brought three awards home.

The winners in the Intercontinental category were France, China and Belgium.

Over 25 countries participated in the festival which had an international jury from France, Spain, Korea and Jordan.

The film festival — which is also screening Filipino classics — is ongoing until June 10 at select cinemas at SM Megamall,

SM City North EDSA, Uptown Cinemas, Greenbelt 3, Shang Cineplex, and the Cinematheque Center Manila. For more information

visit www.wpff. ph or check out the Facebook Page of the World Premieres Film Festival – Philippines.