After an extremely successful five days, the 13th edition of CinemAsia Film Festival has come to a close. The festival had its highest seat occupancy ever and the program also enjoyed great public acclaim. As is tradition, during the Closing Ceremony of the 13th edition of CinemAsia Film Festival, the Competition Jury Award and the new Tao Kae Noi Young Critics Award were presented last night. The winners received an award specially designed by Megan Carapezza (artist and designer). The Taiwanese film Heavy Craving, which represents a strong female narrative of body shaming for international women’s day and was screened as Closing Film, was particularly well received by the audience.

Competition Jury Award



The Competition Jury, consisting of Aileen Li (Producer Detention), Inge de Leeuw (Programmer IFFR), Julian Ross (Programmer IFFR / Locarno), Floortje Smit (Film Journalist De Volkskrant) and Pete Wu (Writer and journalist), unanimously chose the Chinese “Balloon“, directed by Pema Tseden.

The jury ruled as follows:

“It didn’t take the jury a lot of time to reach our unanimous verdict. We chose to reward the movie that approaches a serious topic with flashes of dry humor, starting from the very first scene. With his playful, poetic movie the director refuses to be moralistic, and even though it is set in the recent past, the themes about prejudice and believes still resonate today. Beautifully shot, his almost dreamlike style emphasizes his more spiritual message about destiny and the things that determine one’s life, which makes this movie go beyond a reflection of a society.”

Tao Kae Noi Young Critics Award

This year CinemAsia introduced the Young Critics Award for the first time, consisting of five young media professionals consisting of Alexandra Hsu, Kiriko Mechanicus, Elliot Bloom, Zhaoyu Zhu and Sioejeng Tsao. They watched the special “Neither Burnt, nor Banished” diaspora program curated by Léo Soesanto especially for the festival. “Complicity“, directed by Kei Chikaura, came out as the winner.

The jury ruled as follows:

“This was a very hard decision for us to make. We chose this film as we felt as if it was the one story that best embodied the meaning of the diasporic experience. The film puts life of living in between two countries into a contemporary setting, and evokes feelings of nostalgia through one of our primary needs: food. We felt as if this film touches upon topics of identity, racism, love, friendship and family. This film truly deserves this award!”

ABC Audience Award

This year, too, the public was allowed to cast their vote again and this was done en masse. The ABC Audience Award goes to this year “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” from Bhutan, directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji.

Top 3:

1. “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom“

2. “Bumi Manusia“

3. “Suk Suk“

CinemAsia Film Festival is committed to diversity and the representation of the Asian community and is particularly proud that it has amply achieved its goals in this regard. The festival makes a positive contribution to a diverse and inclusive cultural landscape in which Asian culture is made visible to a large audience.

CinemAsia returns in 2021 with the 14th edition of the CinemAsia Film Festival.