Taiwanese project “Uncle,” directed by Yen Hao-hsuan, won the Tokyo Project Award on Friday at the seventh Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (TGFM) in Tokyo.
“Uncle” had already picked up the Asian Gen-Z Award earlier in the ceremony. Prizes went to a handful of the 24 projects selected for this year’s market.
Yen’s debut feature, set in rural Taiwan between 1997 and 2000, follows a boy whose devotion to his uncle, a man with an intellectual disability, turns to shame as he grows up and leaves home. The story draws on Yen’s own 18 years living with his uncle. The film is produced by Flash Forward Entertainment founder Patrick Mao Huang, whose credits include Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prize winner “Tiger Stripes,” and Sung Chin-hsuan. The project made its first Asian market outing at the Busan Asian Project Market earlier this month.
Jury member Nam Jongsuk, a programmer at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival and managing director of the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF), said “this project looks at society and bravely goes against prejudices, without sugarcoating the subject.” The jury hoped Yen would deliver something “uncompromising,” he added.
Yen said he hadn’t expected the win. “I’ll take this as the energy to shoot and finish the film,” he said.
Now in its second year, the Asian Gen-Z Award carries a JPY500,000 ($3,300) prize. The winner is chosen by a committee of five film students from universities and graduate programs, who pick a project that appeals to people aged 20 to 28.
“Above all, the jury recognized this as a story that demands to be told right now,” the students said of “Uncle,” adding that the film was “resisting simplistic emotional appeals.”
Japanese-Canadian co-production “Wild Zero Overdrive,” from Takegei Company Limited, won the White Light Post-Production Award. The prize comes with $25,000 in post-production services from Thailand-based White Light studio. Directed by Takeuchi Tetsuro, the film is a follow-up to his 1999 cult film “Wild Zero” and stars the real-life punk band Guitar Wolf, who headlined the original. There was no acceptance speech, but winners and presenters alike yelled “rock and roll!” in the spirit of the project.
“Wild Zero Overdrive” came to Tokyo through the Frontières fiction feature selection, part of TIFFCOM’s first partnership with the co-production market of Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
Brazilian feature “Nature Boy,” directed by Matias Mariani and produced by Primo Filmes, won the Mellow Tunes Sound Design Award. The prize offers in-kind sound design services valued at up to $10,000 from Thailand’s Mellow Tunes.
TIFFCOM managing director Ikeda Kaori hosted the ceremony. Nam sat on the jury alongside Meiske Taurisia, a producer at Palari Films, and Paolo Bertolin, a consultant for the Venice International Film Festival.
The Tokyo Gap-Financing Market runs as part of TIFFCOM, the content market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival.
