Diao Yinan wins $5,000 Dragons & Tigers award for Uniform
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Diao Yinan at the Cineworks party
at the Railway Club after being awarded VIFF's Dragons and Tigers award |
Vancouver, BC (October 1, 2003) - China's DIAO Yinan has won the annual Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema at the 22nd Vancouver International Film Festival for his film UNIFORM. The award, which includes a $5,000 prize, is sponsored by Brad Birarda.
The jury, comprised of CHOI Kwang-Hee (senior editor of FILM 2.0), Scott FOUNDAS (film critic for Variety and LA Weekly) and TOMIYAMA Katsue (founder, Tokyo's Underground Film Centre and president Daguerreo Press, Inc., publishers of Image Forum magazine), issued the following statement which was read by Scott Foundas at an award ceremony in Vancouver
"This year's Dragons & Tigers Award goes to a first feature of remarkable maturity and accomplishment - a film that possesses a complexity in its characters, an economy in its storytelling and a texture in its imagery which many filmmakers don't achieve until much later in their careers, if indeed ever. Like other works by the 'underground' film-makers of China's new generation, it is a film set against a society beset by industrial decay and urban despair, wherein a lost generation of young people are searching for their identity. But the concerns of this film extend well beyond that. It is, in short, a film about the masks we wear as people, and the way in which lies can sometimes bring us to a place deeper than truth. By unanimous decision, this year's Dragons & Tigers Award goes to DIAO Yinan for his film UNIFORM."
Foundas's speech also included these remarks: "Speaking about film criticism, Manny Farber once said, 'The last thing I want to know is whether you like it or not; the problems of writing are after that.' So, in a way, are the problems of film festival juries. We may like many films, but can award only one with our top prize. Certainly this was the case with respect to this year's Dragons & Tigers competition. The jury was asked to look at nine new films from East Asia distinguished by their fierce independence and creativity of expression.
"As jurors, our deliberations were both lively and deeply considered. And while there can be only one winner of the top prize, there are two other films from this year's competition which we also want to salute.
"First, for its visually and emotionally rich evocation of life in a rural Chinese village, no longer immune to the push-and-pull of religion and politics, we present a Special Jury Citation to GAN Xiao'er for his film THE ONLY SONS.
"Second, for its radical experimentalism in tone and form, and for its fearless critique of a contemporary Japan paralysed by its imperialist legacy, we present a Special Jury Citation to CHUGOKU Shoichi for his film 8 1 5.
The media partners for the Dragons & Tigers series are Fairchild Television
and Talentvision.
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