A gritty Colombian drama about a woman who's been fitted with an explosive collar, shot in one continuous take, won the top Golden Kinnaree Award on Sunday at the Bangkok International Film Festival.
Directed by Spiros Stathoulopoulos, the Main Competition jury of Singapore's Eric Khoo, Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz and Thai indie director Aditya Assarat, applauded PVC-1 for its "raw, original and relentless vision".
The Best Film in the Southeast Asian competition was Serbis, Brillante Mendoza's drama about a family coming apart at the seams, set inside a decaying Angeles City adult-movie house. Jurors were Thai-film star Ananda Everingham, Korean producer Oh Jungwan and Martial Knaebel, former artistic director of the Fribourg International Film Festival.
In the main competition, a Special Jury Prize went to Those Three by Iranian director Naghi Nemati. Special mentions were awarded to Jay by Filipino director Francis Xavier Pasion and the Chilean drama Alice in the Land by Esteban Larraín.
A Special Jury Prize in the Southeast Asian competition went to Malaysian director Woo Ming Jin's sweet, innocent tale of a schoolboy with a crush on his teacher, Days of Turquoise Sky (Kurus). Special mention went to Filipino director John Torres for Years When I Was a Child Outside.
The festival continues until Tuesday, wrapping up that night with with world premiere of Nanayo, director Naomi Kawase's drama about a Japanese woman travelling in Thailand.
Update: The juries' statements about each of the prize-winning films are detailed on my supplemental blog at The Nation.

(Via Screen Daily, Variety, Hollywood Reporter)
Shot in one continuous take? No film should be made in one take. It's torture on the audience.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to see PVC-1, but others I've talked to about it say it is pretty intense. Yet one viewer commented that he didn't realize it was one take until he'd read about it afterward.
ReplyDeleteI find the effect mesmerizing, at least how it was deployed in the 2002 film, Russian Ark.
Update: I added a detail about a special jury mention for Years When I Was a Child Outside by John Torres.
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