2022
Jury Prize
Aloners by Hong Sung-eun (South Korea)
For pioneering artistic solutions to the nature of human interaction in the context of modern technological complexity and its encounter with universal issues in an elegant and subtle manner.
2020
Jury Prize
Saturday Afternoon by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (Bangladesh)
for the use of violence for political purposes under the pretext of religion.
2019
Jury Prize
A Family Tour by Ying Liang (Hong Kong - Taiwan - Malaysia - Singapore)
for its in-depth universal portrayal of human conditions across borders in the world reflected in dilemma between creative expression and his frustrating personal experience told in a most self-restrained manner.
2018
Jury Prize (ex-aequo)
The Taste of Rice Flower by Pengfei (China)
for its delicate balance in portraying tradition-vs-modernization issues of migrant workers and the children they leave behind in a subtle mother/daughter storyline graced with distinct moods and rituals.
Jury Prize (ex-aequo)
Mothers by Lee Dong-eun (South Korea)
for its low-key treatment in portraying the different faces of motherhood and how its various characters cope and accept it in a sensitive drama about what it is to become a family.
Special Mention
A letter to the president by Roya Sadat (Afghanistan)
For its vivid drama on the plight of women struggling against a country’s patriarchal traditions set amidst corruption and lawlessness, revealing that change may not be forthcoming.
2017
Jury Prize
Going the distance by Harumoto Yujiro (Japan)
for its effective use of comedy and multiple stands of narrative culminating into a dramatic ending that hits home the film’s message with sublime power.
2016
Jury Prize
Imbisibol by Lawrence Fajardo (Philippines)
for its effective use of comedy and multiple stands of narrative culminating into a dramatic ending that hits home the film’s message with sublime power.
Special Mention
Wednesday, May 9 by Vahid Jalilvand (Iran)
for being a straightforwardly told story with crafty directing and cinematography. It creates debate, raises questions, and gives hope, for audience and for Iranian cinema.
2015
Jury Prize
The Monk by The Maw Naing (Myanmar)
for being eloquent even during its silence, thus engaging the audience as participants, and for aptly portraying the dilemma of its protagonist, not just as a monk but also as an individual.
Special Mention
Chen Shiang-chyi
actress in Exit by Chien Hsiang (Taiwan)
for her subtle, nuanced and graceful portrayal of solitude.
2014
Jury Prize
for a film that makes audience reconnects to our human and environmental cores, showing the path to compassion, using poetic cinematography and film language.
2013
Jury Prize
With You Without You by Prasanna Vithanage (Sri Lanka)
for its aesthetic quality and the sublime way of adapting Dostoevsky's story to the contemporary reality. Whenever love and humanity succeed in overcoming tragedy, conflict, and sufferings, only then they can win.
2012
Jury Prize
August Drizzle by Aruna Jayawardana (Sri Lanka)
For its powerful and unsentimental depiction, rooted in its national cinema, of a rural woman struggling to establish her own identity.
Special Mention
Return Ticket by Teng Yung-Shing (Taiwan / China)
For its sensitive and moving inter-generational portrait of a dislocated society still dreaming of home.
2011
Jury Prize
P.S. by Elkin Tuychiev (Uzbekistan)
For its deployment of myth and madness as cinematic constructs to signify and dis-construct the complex realities of contemporary life.
2010
Jury Prize
Animal Town by Jeon Kyu-hwan (South Korea)
For its frank representation of the horrors in modern urban lives, with an experimental and sincere direction and actors' daring actors performance.
2009
Jury Prize
Dawn of the world by Abbas Fahdel (Iraq / France)
For its cinematic pace, atmosphere and representation of a dying culture in the time of devastating war.
2008
Jury Prize
The Old Barber by Hasi Chaolu (China)
For its touching tale of human life, focussing on marginalized individuals, and its sensitive relationship between the human and his surrounding projected in a very sensitive way.
Special Mention
The Red Awn by Cai Shangjun (China)
For its clear depiction and comments on the changing face of a commercializing China. Love and condition in human bonding have been portrayed here in a subtle manner. The film has successfully reflected the globalization of China from the grass root.
