MUMBAI: The Asia Pacific Screen Academy has honoured regional filmmakers at a special presentation on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Hosted by Leila McKinnon, the ceremony awarded its young cinema award to Indian filmmaker Akshay Indikar for Chronicle Of Space (Sthalpuran), with a special mention going to Australian Stephen Maxwell Johnson for High Ground. Chronicle of Space, which premiered at the Berlinale 2020, is a young boy’s story, told through his diary entries as he copes with challenges in a new life on India’s Konkan coast.  

Thailand-based producer Soros Sukhum bagged the 2020 FIAPF Award for outstanding achievement in film in the Asia Pacific region. Sukhum is recognised for his work in the Thai indie space. He is known to launch the careers of Aditya Assarat, Sivaroj Kongsakul, Anocha Suwichakornpong, and Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit. His latest credit is Memoria, the English language debut for director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, featuring Tilda Swinton.

The MPA APSA academy film fund has also revealed the four recipients of its US $25,000 script development grant: Bianca Balbuena (Philippines) for Việt and Nam (Vietnam), a collaboration with Vietnamese writer-director Minh Quy Truong; Guillaume de Seille (France) for A Kid on the Block (Japan), the magical realism feature debut of documentary filmmaker Kyoko Miyake; Annemarie Jacir from Palestine, whose 2017 film Wajib won 36 international awards, has received the grant for her project All Before You; and 2019 APSA young cinema award winner Ridham Janve (India) has received the grant for his project The Sacrifice (Ashwamedh).

The APSA presentation ceremony marked the end of the 2020 APSA Forum.  A week-long series of various panels and roundtable discussions delivered both in person and digitally, with participants from 18 countries.