Isabella from Hong Kong wins at World Film Fest

The 4th World Film Festival of Bangkok grinds to halt tonight with a screening of The Battleship Potemkin. (Sorry, no Pet Shop Boys score, but it is an original print from Mosfilm.)

Yesterday, they handed out the awards in the Harvest of Talents competition. Here are the winners:

• Best Feature: Isabella (Hong Kong, 2006), directed by Pang Ho-Cheung
• Best Cinematography: Climates (Turkey, 2006), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
• Best Script: Seeds of Doubt (Germany, 2005), directed by Samir Nasr
• Jury’s Prize: 12:08 East of Bucharest (Romania, 2006), directed by Corneliu Porumboiu
• People's Choice Award: The Banquet (China, 2006), directed by Feng Xiaogang

I didn't get to see as many of the films this year as I would have liked, due to the vagaries of trying to hold down a full-time job. Thankfully, however, there is yet another Asian film blog to take up the slack on film watching. It's by a traveller named Brian who's a co-conspirator of Grady Hendrix. He has a review of the indie Thai film, Sugarless, and many of the competition films.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)