'What the Snow Brings' sweeps Tokyo film festival
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-01 09:04

TOKYO: "What the Snow Brings," a Japanese film directed by Kichitaro Negishi, swept the Tokyo International Film Festival on Sunday by winning three key awards, including the best movie title.

A scene from the film "You and Me," starring 84-year-old Jin Yaqin. Jin won the award for the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role along with British actress Helena Bonham Carter at the Tokyo International Film Festival. [Xinhua]

The three awards the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix, the Best Director Award and the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role were announced at the closing ceremony of the nine-day event.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou and "Memoirs of a Geisha" actress Kaori Momoi were among those who handed out the prizes in a glitzy finale held at Roppongi Hills, an entertainment complex in central Tokyo.

"The whole jury loved the film, and was very touched," Zhang said at the ceremony, adding that the panel's decision was unanimous.

"With this film, I tried to focus on family relations which are one of the traditional themes of Japanese movies," Negishi told the ceremony.

"I would like to dedicate this film to Japanese film directors who have developed the Japanese film industry," he said.

The film stars Japanese actors Yusuke Iseya and Koichi Sato, who won the Best Performance by an Actor award. It focuses on the relationship between brothers and a younger brother's recovery of hope which had been lost in his dissipated urban life.

"Conversations with Other Women" took the Special Jury Prize. British actor Helena Bonham Carter, who starred in the film, took the Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

"Loach is Fish Too," directed by Chinese director Yang Yazhou, received the award for Best Artistic Contribution. The film is about a Chinese divorcee with twin daughters as she moves from the countryside to Beijing, meeting a boss of migrant workers who shares her name, Loach, along the way.

Jin Yaqin, an 84-year-old Chinese actress, clinched the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role along with Bonham Carter. She was cast in a Chinese film, "You and Me," which features a friendship between a girl and an old woman.

The Akira Kurosawa Award, named after the famed Japanese director, went to Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who won the Grand Prix at Venice International Film Festival with "A City of Sadness" in 1989.

A total of 16 films were nominated for the awards, including the US$100,000 grand prix, after some 580 films from 65 countries were entered for the competition.

About 267,000 people attended the nine-day festival, which is in its 18th year, organizers said.