'All We Imagine...,' 'April' lead Asia Pacific Screen Awards nominations
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) has revealed its 2024 nominations, with two women-directed films topping the list. Payal Kapadia's Cannes-winning All We Imagine as Light and Dea Kulumbegashvili's April lead the pack with five nominations each. Both films have been nominated in major categories: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Performance. The nominations were announced on Wednesday.
These films are also competing for Best Film
All We Imagine... and April aside, other contenders for the Best Film category include Yoko Yamanaka's Desert of Namibia, Neo Sora's Happyend, and Jiang Xiaoxuan's To Kill a Mongolian Horse. To note, four out of five films nominated in this category are directed by women. In another first for APSA, all five Best Film nominees are either debut or second features by their respective directors.
Best Director and performance categories dominated by women
The Best Director category sees Kapadia, Kulumbegashvili, Jiang, Tato Kotetishvili for Holy Electricity, and veteran French-Cambodian auteur Rithy Panh for Meeting with Pol Pot. In a historic move, all five nominations in the newly ungendered Best Performance category have gone to women. They include India's Kani Kusruti for All We Imagine..., Georgia's Ia Sukhitashvili for April, Japan's Yuumi Kawai for Desert of Namibia, Kazakh performer Madina Akylbekova for Madina and Iranian Soheila Golestani for The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
APSA chair highlighted representation of new cinematic voices
Commenting on the nominations, APSA chair Tracey Vieira said, "In 2024, two thirds of our nominated films are debut or second films, representing the cinematic excellence of the next generation of Asia Pacific voices." She added that these nominations reflect "the unique and compelling stories they are choosing to tell." The awards ceremony will be held on November 30 in Gold Coast, Queensland.
APSA ceremony to include film fund grant announcements
The APSA ceremony will take place after the four-day Asia Pacific Screen Forum from November 27-30. Four recipients of the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund grants of $25,000—fully supported by the Motion Picture Association, Asia Pacific—will also be announced at the event. The initiative is part of APSA's commitment to supporting and promoting emerging talent in the Asia Pacific film industry.
