'The Salvation Army showed it to encourage the elderly to take up video as a hobby, and I could tell them that with our life experience we could make something youngsters could not,' Law says. 'Groups in Tuen Mun showed it to teenagers to try to get them to channel their energy into video-making and not some unruly activities. That was really satisfying.'

Armed with the $15,000 prize Law bought her own equipment (she shot and edited Sleeping Culture on cumbersome equipment borrowed from the YWCA) and with a further outlay of $35,000, she now owns her own cameras and a computer installed with editing software.

But, rather than breaking into the movie industry, Law still spends most of her time working as a freelance business assistant, roaming Hong Kong handling administrative paperwork for clients.

As the IFVA celebrates its 10th year, Law is among a selected coterie of past winners who will have their work reintroduced to viewers: Sleeping Culture is part of an omnibus screening which comprises three pieces organisers deemed a 'salute to Hong Kong culture', the other two being Leo Lo Hoi-ying's Hong Kong Guy and Kwan Park-huen's Red White Blue.

But Law is realistic about her lack of success in the field following her brief triumph four years ago. 'I only wanted to air my grievances about social injustice,' says Law, who has since had three pieces fall by the wayside at the awards.

Can't Help, her follow-up about how the elderly in Tuen Mun had to queue for hours for medical assistance, failed because she had to protect most of the subjects' identities. 'If I were to be a film buff with an eye for prominence, I would have revealed all and raised a stink, got sued and become more famous,' Law says. 'Of course, that's not what I want.'

Such ambivalence is hardly typical of most IFVA participants. The awards are seen as one of Hong Kong's most vibrant showcases of creativity, on which many participants pin their hopes of a break into the industry.

As the Hong Kong Arts Centre's programme director Connie Lam Suk-yee writes in the centre's monthly brochure ArtsLink, many previous winners 'have progressed from being nobodies into becoming creators of great influence'.

Jia Zhangke, for instance, now considered a leading light of Chinese cinema, found exposure outside the mainland as an IFVA winner in 1996; Raman Hui Shing-ngai, who won an award the same year, has gone on to become the animator on the Shrek films; Pang Ho-cheung and Carol Lai Miu-suet, now established directors, also first found their voice at the awards.

Others include Wong Ching-po, who won a gold award in the open category in 1997 with his first entry I Love Bath Tap. Director of last year's gangster flick Jiang Hu starring Andy Lau Tak-wah and Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Wong set the IFVA alight with unspeakably twisted features about incest (Bamboo Door, Bamboo Door) and child abuse (The Dog) during the late 1990s. Among those impressed by his work was veteran filmmaker Eric Tsang Chi-wai, who in 2000 is on the lookout for new directorial talent in an industry fast becoming stagnant with the lack of both cash and innovation.

It was with Tsang's assistance that Wong finally arrived at Fu Bo, his first mainstream feature set around workers at a Macanese mortuary. 'He [Tsang] rang each actor himself asking them to show support by participating in the film - and that's why there's such a cast of pros for such a low-budget movie,' Wong says, pointing to the likes of co-stars Liu Kai-chi and Anthony Wong Chau-sang.

It is a connection that worked wonders for Wong's career: Tsang's patronage led to Jiang Hu, and Wong is preparing for his third mainstream feature, a film portraying the underworld as a harmonious utopia starring Tony Leung Ka-fai, Francis Ng Chun-yu and Liu Ye.

The 32-year-old former TVB production assistant is still taken aback by life in commercial movie-making. 'It's painstaking,' he says. 'The movie industry is a mechanical, ossifying structure that you couldn't really change, and because of that you see squandered ideas and messages going down the drain. You are just expected to churn out a product as required: which is fine if I were a product designer. But I'm not, I'm a filmmaker.'

It's a far cry from the fledgling bit player he was as recently as three years ago. Wong now has a company of his own, Red Flag, an assistant to handle his schedules, and criss-crosses the region pursuing his projects.

It's a life that Leo Lo, an IFVA winner in 1998, would die for. Lo was also in an endless rush most of the time, but only as a foot soldier for others. As a freelancer, he frequents the offices of movie companies to help out on comparatively less creative chores, working telephones and computers or delivering copies of films to censors and licensees.

'Getting into the industry has made me more humble,' says the 24-year-old, during a break between post-production assignments for Benny Chan Muk-shing's new movie. 'When I won that award I thought I was really great, but having seen what I've seen - how some people have to wait until their late 30s or even 40s to make the grade - I wouldn't dream of becoming a director when I'm still this young.'

When Lo's Hong Kong Guy picked up the gold award at IFVA's youth category seven years ago, the then teenager became a cause celebre. Clocking in at nearly an hour - a mammoth length for a work in the category - it was a rough yet refreshingly coherent piece, combining kung fu, intrigue and oddball comedy into what Lo dubs a tribute to Bruce Lee and Stephen Chow Sing-chi.

Using the limited resources at his disposal - the family video recorder, desk lamps, locations in and near his home in Mei Foo, and most of his summer holidays - Lo, an ardent martial arts enthusiast, set to work. Starting from obscure straight-to-video flicks, Lo has progressed to bigger things, his face more recognisable alongside Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi (playing a student in Tsui Hark's Master Q 2001) and, hilariously, hitting Chow with a stick as a thug in Shaolin Soccer.

'I took on these small roles, but it was always as a student, and then a triad, and then as a student who is also a triad,' says Lo, who admitted to wanting a life in front of the camera rather than behind it.

His one stab at a leading role was Killer 2, which disappeared without a trace. It's no coincidence that Chow is one of Lo's idols. Chow often plays small-time characters who persevere even when thrown all manner of trivial and unedifying duties. And for all the cynicism that comes with age and with his IFVA award a fading memory, Lo's enthusiasm for his art is similarly undimmed. He still regularly makes short films with elaborate fight scenes and idiosyncratic animation - Guys in Mongkok, for example, is a montage about events unfolding during a trip to see pop duo Twins at a publicity event.

The spread of audio-visual equipment might have facilitated an increase in independent video-makers, but Lo doesn't see it as necessarily a good thing. 'The standards have fallen as people are not as meticulous about their work - there will be an increase in quantity, that's true, but there will be less heart going into it,' he says.

Wong, however, offers another perspective from the inside of the industry. 'There are lots of opportunities for indie filmmakers, but for those who still insist on having free rein on what they do, of course, they have to think whether they are capable of adapting themselves to commercial work,' he says.

Results of this year's awards will be announced on Mar 28, and a screening of the winning entries will take place on Mar 29, 7.30pm, Agnes b Cinema, HK Arts Centre. $70 Urbtix. Hong Kong Guy and Sleeping Culture of Tuen Mun are screening as part of IFVA's 10-year retrospective. Sun, 4.30pm, Agnes b Cinema, HK Arts Centre. $50 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2582 0200