VIFF 2008: The Dragons & Tigers Award...

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For the 15th year @ VIFF, the 'Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema' to a new director from the Asia-Pacific region is given to a creative/innovative film made early in the director's career, which has not yet won significant international recognition.

With Brad Birarda continuing to sponsor the $10,000 award and the entire series, the jury for the 2008 award comprised: Ichiyama SHOZO, artistic director, Tokyo FilmEx festival and programmer for Cinema Digital Seoul; Elisabeth LEQUERET, critic for Cahiers du Cinema and Radio France Internationale, and Thai director Mr Pen-ek RATANARUANG, whose most recent feature is "Ploy".

This year's eight nominees were:
"GERMAN + RAIN" (Yokohama Satoko) - Japan, International Premiere
"KAZA-AANA" (Uchida Nobutero) - Japan, International Premiere
"LUCKY 7" (Sun Koh, K Rajagopal, Boo Junfeng, Brian Gothong Tan, Chew Tze
Chuan, Ho Tzu Nyen, Tania Sng) - Singapore
"mime-mime" (Sode Yukiko) - Japan, International Premiere
"PERFECT LIFE" (Emily Tang) - China, North American Premiere
"SWEET FOOD CITY" (Gao Wengdong) - China, North American Premiere
"SYNCHING BLUE" (Seo Won-Tae) - South Korea, Canadian Premiere
"THE 'THANK YOU' GIRLS" (Charliebebs Gohetia) - The Philippines,
International Premiere

"The eight films we watched were not all perfect," said the Jury.

"...and probably none of them was a masterpiece. But we enjoyed all of them in different ways, and found in each of them signs of great energy and talent...we want to single out two particularly strong films for Special Mentions:

"German + Rain" by Ms YOKOHAMA Satoko from Japan.
"...The main character is disturbing, yet unexpectedly fascinating. Taken with naturalistic performances from the entire cast, this is a strangely moving film..."

"Sweet Food City" by GAO Wendong from China.
"...For its use of an incredible location, and the very clever way it combines elements of documentary with fiction..."

This year's Dragons and Tigers Award goes to:

"Perfect Life" by Emily TANG from Hong Kong/China.
"...For the way it captures the harshness of Chinese reality through its fictional protagonist, and for the subtlety of its wonderfully free storytelling..."

"Perfect Life" will be screened again, Friday, October 3 at 3:45pm @ Vancouver's Vancity Theatre...