Hong Kong Filmart: 'Doomsday – Party,' 'Barber's Tales' Top HAF Awards

HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s Ho Hong and Filipino filmmaker Jun Robles Lana have won the two top awards at this year’s Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, which concluded its three-day run Wednesday.

our editor recommends

Hong Kong Filmart: Vampire Genre Gets Chinese Spin

Hong Kong Filmart: Industry Turns Spotlight on New Talent

Hong Kong Filmart: Local Industry Embraces Sex Comedies

Hong Kong Filmart: TV Sector Sees Growth

Cash prizes of $19,230 (HK$150,000) are given to first-time feature-film director Ho, for heist drama Doomsday – Party, and Lana, for his 1970s-set Barber’s Tales. The two projects also took home the Arri awards, which would allow them to rent shooting equipment from the Munich-based manufacturers to the amount of 30,000 euros.

Having won critical acclaim in the past year with Bwakaw – his lead actor, Eddie Garcia, on Monday added a best actor prize at the Asian Film Awards to the gong he won at the Golden Horses last year – Lana also won the Technicolor Asia Award, an in-kind prize provided by the Bangkok-based company worth $25,000.

The winners emerged from a slate of 25 entries selected from 250 submissions, according to the market organizers. For the two top prizes, one was designated for Hong Kong projects -- there were five in the selection this year --with the other for offerings from abroad.

The $12,900 HAF Script Development Fund Award, backed by Bona Film Group and the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, was won by A Happy Wish.

Zhou Hongbo’s Departure (mainland China) won the Paris Project Award, which would see the project entered into the Paris Cinema International Film Festival’s pitch market this year. The Wouter Barendrecht Award, with a cash prize of $6,410 (HK$50,000) went to All About You, an entry from Korean filmmaker Jang Kun-jae and produced by Naomi Kawase.

The new Catepooolt Awards, comprising three seed funding awards of different amounts and a complimentary listing on the crowd-funding facilitator’s website, went to Joko Anwar’s The Last Wedding on Earth, Lana’s Barber’s Tales and Lawrence Fajardo’s One Thousand.

The Network of Asian Fantastic Films Awards was given to Hong Kong’s Lam Suk-ching, who will receive $2,700 and have her project When I Come to Me invited to the project event at Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival this year.

Meanwhile, the panelists of the HAF/Fox Chinese Film Development Award announced two winners this year, with Gong Zhaohui’s Underground River and Han Yew Kwang’s The Flying Postman receiving cash prizes of $12,900 (HK$100,000) and a development contract with Fox International Productions.

The judges for the HAF/Fox award this year include Bona CEO Yu Dong, Hong Kong filmmaker Fruit Chan and Taiwanese producer Rachel Chen.