City prepares to host Oscar's Asian cousin
Hong Kong is about to get an annual Asian version of the Oscars, with government assistance of up to HK$5 million.
The first awards ceremony in March will be run by the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which will help raise the festival's standing in Asia.
Festival chairman Wilfred Wong Ying-wai said the government had agreed to provide funds of 'between HK$4 million and HK$5 million' for the event, matching whatever amount the festival raised through sponsorship.
The first Asian Film Awards, which will hand out prizes in 10 categories, will take place on March 20, the opening day of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
The government's decision to allocate extra funds to help establish the awards is a reversal of fortune for the festival, which has seen budgets cut over the past few years.
Organisers have repeatedly voiced dissatisfaction with the budget cuts imposed since the festival was corporatised in 2003.
The festival's ambassador, actor-producer Andy Lau Tak-wah, made a high-profile appeal last year urging the government not to trim its financial support of the festival any further.
Lau said the event was receiving only one-sixth the money its regional competitors were getting from their governments.
Mr Wong said the goal was to position the event as the Asian equivalent of the Academy Awards and the European Film Awards, helping the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the city's film industry 'attain its place on the international stage'.
The awards will serve not only as the curtain-raiser to the film festival but also the opening event of this year's Entertainment Expo, a four-week affair that includes Filmart, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Independent Short Film and Video Awards.
Films from the mainland and Hong Kong made up about 100 of about 700 from which the winners are being chosen. To be eligible, films had to have English subtitles.
In the running for best film are Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower, Johnnie To Kei-fung's Exiled and Jia Zhangke's Still Life, as well as The Host from South Korea, Love and Honour from Japan and Opera Jawa, an Indonesian-Austrian joint production.
