Directors Kelvin Tong and Royston Tan were among the main winners of Singapore's film awards last week, the first time the city state's filmmakers were accorded separate prizes. Previously, the Singapore International Film Festival (Siff) - which hosted the competition - only presented silver screen awards to Singaporean short films and Asian feature films.
Festival co-director Wahyuni Hadi says the audience response to the introduction last year of a Singapore Panorama section had been so good the organisers felt it was 'time to take the next step'.
'Questions have been raised about whether the local film industry produces enough films to sustain such an award. The answer is we don't know; but when we started, we didn't know the festival would still be here after 22 years either and I think we have to take a chance. This new award is a chance for us to celebrate local talent,' she says.
Other winners last Friday included Sherman Ong, who won the best screenplay award for the experimental Hashi - a movie he also directed - that centres around the lives and dreams of three women from three different age groups; Mark Lee won for best performance for his dramatic turn in Jack Neo's Money No Enough 2.
The award for best cinematography went to the film Lucky 7 and its omnibus team of Roszali Samad, Brian Gothong Tan, Sharon Loh, Jaye Neo, Cain Chui, Andrew Mark Sobrielo, Chris Yeo and Adrian Lo.
'I think these new awards are a big encouragement for the film community. They open a new window especially for people who are currently doing short films,' Royston Tan says.
While this year's winners are stalwarts of the local film industry, the nominees also included a few of the new generation of filmmakers, such as Han Yew Kwang for his drama 18 Grams of Love and Cheng Ding An for his football flick Kallang Roar the Movie.