Asia Pacific Screen Award Winners: ‘Perfect Day’ By Wim Wenders Wins Best Film, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ Takes Jury Prize

Martin Dale Contributor Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” won best film at the 17th edition of Leffest Lisboa Film Festival, which announced awards Saturday night. Marking Erice’s first feature film since his 1992 docudrama “The Quince Tree Sun” and garnering almost universal positive reviews – Variety called it “an aching ode to film, time and memory” – following its world premiere at Cannes, “Close Your Eyes” has screened at Toronto, Busan, BFI London and New York.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor It took director Ariel Kuaray Ortega almost two decades to be able to tell a story he’s heard throughout his entire life: the strange tale of Canuto, a man who mysteriously transformed into a jaguar and then died a tragic death. The resulting film, “Canuto’s Transformation,” had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, where it took the award for best film in the Envision Competition and the outstanding artistic contribution award.

Documentaries about the impact of war claimed two of the top prizes as the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam handed out awards Thursday night.

When you’re composing music for a character named Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in the movie American Fiction, it should be pretty obvious where a composer like Laura Karpman might find her inspiration.

Wim Wenders returned to the Croisette at the Cannes Film Festival in a big way this year with “Perfect Days.” The German director’s first film since 2017’s “Submergence” wowed audiences at the festival, with the movie nabbing the Prize Of The Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for star Kōji Yakusho. Now, after further screenings at Telluride, TIFF, London, and NYFF this Fall, it’s time for US audiences to see “Perfect Days” for themselves.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA may take another day to respond to the studios’ “last, best and final” offer, as the union’s negotiating committee continues to weigh its next move. The studios last talked to union leadership on Saturday afternoon, when a large group of CEOs sought to make clear that they will not make further concessions. After that meeting, some members of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee expressed dissatisfaction with the studios’ offer.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Two films from Japan, Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” and Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” won the top prizes at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Friday. Multiple other honors went to films from Korea and Kazakhstan. The 16th edition of the APSA Awards was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and recognized films from eight countries. “Perfect Days,” a gentle comedy drama about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo finding happiness in the everyday, premiered in Cannes and more recently was selected as Japan’s Oscar contender and as the opening title of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Warner Bros Discovery‘s international restructuring has continued with James Gibbons setting out the shape of his Asia Pacific team, with Japanese Country Manager Masami Takahashi choosing to retire.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed several leadership roles across its Asia Pacific (APAC) business, following the appointment of James Gibbons as president, Asia Pacific, in October.

Sharon Osbourne and her husband Ozzy Osbourne may have officially won the Best Celebrity Couple Halloween costume contest. The vibrant and iconic couple dressed up as this year‘s most controversial couple, Kanye West, and Bianca Censori. The couple channeled one of their many viral paparazzi moments in Italy when Censori was spotted holding a purple pillow.

Mark Schilling Japan Correspondent “Snow Leopard,” the last film by Tibetan director Pema Tseden prior to his death in May, was awarded the Grand Prix at the closing ceremony of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival on Wednesday. Premiering out of competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival and later screening at Toronto, the film depicts the argument between a father and his adult son of how to deal with the title beast, which has descended from the mountains to kill sheep in their village.

Cata Balzano The 10th anniversary edition of Miami’s Gems Film Festival will get underway in November, promising a four-day line-up of 26 films that feature diversity and highlight more than famous faces from the awards season circuit. The festival, a fall offshoot of the Miami Film Festival hosted by Miami Dade College, will run from Nov. 2-5 this year.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales agency the Playmaker has signed a deal with Blue Finch Film Releasing to distribute the one-shot horror film “Home Sweet Home — Where Evil Lives” in the U.K. and Ireland. Thomas Sieben’s film, which made its world premiere in August at FrightFest in London, has its market premiere at AFM.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Berlin-based DCM Film Distribution has acquired Kristoffer Borgli’s surrealist comedy “Dream Scenario,” starring Nicolas Cage. In the A24 satire, which premiered in Toronto before opening this year’s Zurich Film Festival, Cage plays a college professor whose life is turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. “We love ‘Dream Scenario,’” says Carl Rickmers, DCM’s newly appointed director of film acquisitions and sales.

Naman Ramachandran Lila Aviles‘ “Totem” has won the global feature award at the annual Jakarta Film Week. The film previously won awards at the Berlin, Hong Kong, Durban and Beijing film festivals. The direction award for best Indonesian feature film went to Jeremias Nyangoen’s directorial debut “Women of Rote Island.” The film bowed at Busan earlier in October.

Marta Balaga Pepa Lubojacki’s “If Pigeons Turned to Gold” was named the most promising European project at Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival. The Czech-Slovak co-production follows four family members, including Lubojacki’s own brother and cousins, unhoused for over a decade and struggling with addiction. “I don’t use the word ‘homeless,’ because it has really negative connotations.

Jaden Thompson Slamdance has announced the winners of its annual screenplay competition, with Mike Ackerman’s feature-length script “This End Up” winning the grand prize. Slamdance announced the awards — recognizing writers across the categories of feature film, horror/thriller, TV pilot, short film and a special mentorship award — during a ceremony held at Los Angeles’s Westwood Landmark Theater on Wednesday night.

Thierry Frémaux is best known internationally as the long-time head of France’s Cannes Film Festival, which is organized out of its offices in Paris’s trendy Marais neighborhood.

Tokyo’s International Film Festival returned this evening for its first completely unrestricted, post-COVID-19 edition with a well-attended screening of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days. 

Wim Wenders introduced the cast and crew of “Perfect Days” at an outdoor stage, giving the opening ceremony of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival a moment of European cool. Inside the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater, Wenders was brought on stage twice more. “I had a dream that with ‘Perfect Days,’ I’d make a film that would play at the Cannes Film Festival. I dreamed that it would win the best acting prize.