NEW DELHI: Director Ritesh Batra won the best award for Screenplay in Lunchbox and also the Grand Jury Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Brisbane recently.
The film – which has already won a large number of laurels worldwide – had recently also won three awards at the 56th Asia-Pacific Film Festival award ceremony held in Macau.
Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal was chairman of the jury for the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards where Anurag Kashyap’s film Ugly had also been entered in competition. Other jury members were Korean screenwriter and director Kim Tae-yong, “Queen of Sri Lankan Cinema” actress of stage and screen Hon Dr Malani Fonseka, Turkish actor Tamer Levent, Swiss director Christoph Schaub and Hong Kong producer Albert Lee. The preview committee included film critic Meenakshi Shedde from India.
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) is an international cultural initiative of the State Government of Queensland, Australia, through Events Queensland, to honour and promote the films, actors, directors, and cultures of Asia-Pacific to a global audience and to realise the objectives of UNESCO to promote and preserve the respective cultures through the influential medium of film.
Staged for the first time in 2007, APSA collaborates with UNESCO and FIAPF – the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, which is the body that recognises international film festivals. Winners are determined by an international jury and films are judged on cinematic excellence and the way in which they attest to their cultural origins. APSA takes the works of filmmakers across more than 70 countries and areas in the Asia-Pacific region to new international audiences.
The FIAPF Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film was given to Korean film producer Lee Choon-yun by FIAPF Executive Member and Film Federation of India Secretary General Supran Sen. This award celebrates a filmmaker from the region whose career and actions strongly contribute to the development of the film industry.
The awards are the Asia Pacific region’s highest accolade in film, recognising and promoting cinematic excellence and cultural diversity of the world’s fastest growing film region: comprising 70 countries and areas, 4.5 billion people, and responsible for half of the world’s film output.
There were a total of over 230 films from 41 countries and areas, including Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film submissions from an unprecedented 19 countries.
