Hong Kong Film Awards board to vote on changing system that allowed Ten Years to win

UPDATED: Industry association director has proposed stripping professional adjudicators – filmmakers, actors and critics – of their majority vote on awards, amid dispute over dystopian movie’s win and whether it should have been eligible

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Crucindo Hung, of the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association, who proposed the change to how Hong Kong Film Awards winners are picked. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 6:23pm, 13 Jul 2016Updated: 12:33pm, 14 Jul 2016

A proposal to change the system for picking Hong Kong Film Awards winners will be put to a vote on July 19, amid calls for reform after independent film Ten Years scooped the best picture award at the 35th Hong Kong Film awards in April.

Made on a modest budget of HK$500,000, the politically sensitive film takes a dystopian view of Hong Kong in 2025 under Beijing’s rule. Ten Years’ nomination was announced in late January, a week after an editorial in the Chinese newspaper Global Times called the film absurd and overly pessimistic. Chinese media then pulled out of broadcasting the awards ceremony despite a prior contractual arrangement. The film’s surprising win sparked fierce debate in the movie industry.

Producer Andrew Choi (fourth from left) and director Ng Ka-leung (third from left) pose with members of the cast and crew of Ten Years with the trophy for best picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Photo: Edward Wong

Under the current system, the winner in each category is chosen in two rounds of voting. In the second round, a group of 55 “professional adjudicators” made up of filmmakers, actors and seasoned film critics account for 55 per cent of the total votes, while the remaining 45 per cent of the votes are cast by hundreds of executive committee members from 13 film groups, including the Film Directors’ Guild and the Society of Cinematographers.

At a meeting of the board of directors of the Film Awards Association last month, Crucindo Hung Cho-sing, who represents the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association and the Hong Kong Chamber of Films, proposed to strip the votes from the 55 professional jurors.

“The jurors can control the outcome if they all vote for the same [film or person]. The opinion of the about 1,000 voting members would not matter, as they only account for 45 per cent of the votes,” Hung tells the Post. “That is very unfair.”