The 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) competition is officially open. Over the past decade, the APSA Competition has featured more than 2800 films In Competition. Each year, we are in awe of the calibre of submissions and look forward to uncovering new and powerful stories. Winners will be announced on 29 November at a black-tie gala ceremony in Brisbane, attracting the region’s best and brightest filmmakers.
For the first time ever, Australia will participate in the EFA Young Audience Award. APSA will connect Brisbane children with their European peers to form a collective jury from a record 45 cities. On 6 May, the young jury will collectively select and announce a winner from three nominated films, Girl in Flight (Italy), Hobbyhorse Revolution (Finland) and Wallay (France, Burkina Faso). We are proud to further enrich our alliance with the European Film Awards and thrilled to participate in the 7th EFA Young Audience Award.
APSA is pleased to advise that an opportunity may exist for its academy members to have their films distributed in the People’s Republic of China. Working with VAC International, the aim is to secure rights to feature films and documentaries for the Chinese television, online and cinema market. If you have a film you believe may be appropriate for the Chinese market, please provide your information and APSA will arrange an introduction through to VAC International.
We’d like to congratulate the team behind The Seen and Unseen (Indonesia, Netherlands, Australia, Qatar), which won the Grand Prix of Generation KPlus at Berlin International Film Festival! We are very proud of this film, which received an APSA Academy Children’s Film Fund grant and won the 2017 APSA for Best Youth Feature Film. The International Jury were touched by the poetic tale: “It is a film that embraces risk, authenticity and the mystical in a finely tuned filmic dance.” This is a first for Indonesia and we are thrilled to see the spotlight shine on Asia Pacific cinema.