Asia Pacific Screen Awards selects four Iranian nominees

“Tinar” produced by Mehdi Moniri will compete for the Best Documentary Feature Film Award and Behnam Behzadi for “We Only Live Twice” for the Achievement In Directing Award.

Actors Reza Naji “The Song of Sparrows” and Alireza Aghakhani “We Only Live Twice” will also compete for the Best Actor Category Award, Screen Daily announced last week.

Men Jeuk (Sparrow, Hong Kong), Om Shanti Om (India), Tulpan (Kazakhstan/Russia/ Switzerland/Poland/Germany), Uc maymun (Three Monkeys, Turkey/France/Italy) and Hong Se Kang Bai Yin (The Red Awn, The People’s Republic of China) will vie for Best Feature Film in the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards (the APSAs) – the region’s highest accolade in film in 2008 - has announced nominees in nine Award categories representing 33 films from 17 countries and areas of the Asia-Pacific region. They are Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Lebanon, Qatar, New Zealand, People’s Republic of China, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

Johnnie To’s Men Jeuk (Sparrow) has received four nominations - Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Achievement in Cinematography and Best Performance by an Actor. Uc maymun (Three Monkeys), directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, has received three nominations.

“The nominees were determined from more than 180 films from 43 countries and areas entered in these, the second APSAs. We are greatly encouraged by the response from filmmakers from Asia-Pacific in our mission to acclaim their work and promote it to an international audience. Once again, the nominees showcase the tremendous talent and creativity that exists in the burgeoning film industries of the region,” said APSA Chairman Des Power.

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MNA