ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
Johnnie To for ‘Man Jeuk’ (Sparrow)
Hong Kong
Hong Kong-based filmmaker Johnnie To has over 40 directing and producing credits to his name, stretching from the height of the Hong Kong New Wave right up to today. In 1996 he formed the Milky Way independent film production company, in partnership with frequent collaborator Wai Ka-fai in 1996, which became the de facto hallmark of quality, efficient filmmaking in Hong Kong. To’s credits include: The Mission, PTU, Election 1&2 and Exiled. He has won numerous awards, including the Time Machine Career Achievement at the Festival de Cine de Sitges, 2005, and his films have been screened on the international circuit; most notably Exiled in competition at the Venice Film Festival, 2006, Election in competition at the Cannes International Film Festival, 2006 and Triangle in Official Selection at the 60th Cannes International Film Festival, 2007
Kiyoshi Kurosawa for ‘Tokyo Sonata’
Japan/The Netherlands, Hong Kong
Born in July 1955 in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, Kurosawa started directing 8mm independent films while studying Sociology at Rikkyo University. In 1980, his first work Shigarami Gakuen screened at PIA Film Festival. Kurosawa then spent the next few years studying with directors Kazuhiko Hasegawa and Shinji Somai. In 1983, he made his commercial debut with the feature film, Kandagawa Wars. Kurosawa’s credits include: Cure – Best Director, Yokohama Film Festival, Charisma – highly acclaimed at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 1999, Pulse – Critics’ Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival in Un Certain Regard, 2001, Bright Future, Doppelganger and Retribution.
Kim Jee-woon for ‘Joheunnom Nabbeunnom Isanghannom’ (The Good, the Bad, the Weird)
Republic of Korea
Director Kim Jee-woon was a theater actor and director before debuting with his self-written and directed film, The Quiet Family in 1998. He is currently one of the most talented and recognised writers/directors in the Korean film industry. Following his self-proclaimed genre, comic theater of cruelty, in The Quiet Family, Kim trekked on to explore new genres such as comedy The Foul King, horror The Tale of Two Sisters, and film noir A Bittersweet Life and showed his unique twists on storytelling, style and other well-established forms. The result - his works have set ground as the representative Korean films in each of the genres in both critique and box-office success. With mounted bandits, steam engine trains, opium-filled brothels, his new film, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, is a western that focuses on the anarchic and multinational culture-ridden Manchuria in the 1930s. Now, with his ‘Oriental Western’, Kim promises to take moviegoers into yet another unfamiliar, unprecedented, genre of film.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan for ‘Uc Maymun’ (Three Monkeys)
Turkey/France/Italy
Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1959. After graduating as an engineer from Bosphorus University, Istanbul, he studied filmmaking for two years at Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul. His credits include: Les Climats (2006) Uzak (2003) and Mayis Sikintisi (Clouds of May) (1999).
Sergey Dvortsevoy for ‘Tulpan’
Kazakhstan/Russia/Switzerland-Poland-Germany
Born in 1962 in Chimkent, Kazakhstan, Sergey Dvortsevoy graduated from the Radio Technical Institute for Aviation in Novosibirsk. As an Aeroflot manager he travelled the country, until he discovered an announcement for Superior Courses for Directors and Screenplay writers in Moscow. His first short film Scasti demonstrated his ability to show the world in its simplicity, its warmth and its strength. This wonderful mixture of naturalism and poetry was later called ‘new sincerity’ by the critics. Dvortsevoy describes his films not as documentaries but as life cinema - "I am as watchful as an eagle, my head rotates in a circle of 360 degrees". Sergey has directed numerous award-winning documentaries, including Paradise, Bread Day, High Way and In the Dark. Tulpan is Sergey Dvortsevoy’s first feature film.