Macau (MNA) – The main jury of the International Film Festival and Awards Macao (IFFAM) held a press conference on Monday in which each of the five panel members shared its recollections of the first film festivals they took part as filmmakers and how important they were for their career.
This year’s IFFAM jury includes Chinese director Chen Kaige as its Jury President, and Hong Kong filmmaker Mabel Cheung, Indian actress Tillotama Shome, Australian producer Paul Currie and Bosnian director Danis Tanovic.
“My first movie introduced to Cannes was King of Children. I knew nothing about Cannes, only that I was invited to go. Then I was like an idiot just looking around without any idea of what was going to happen. I did not really expect to win an award but I learned a lot .You feel like you are doing something important […] I was encouraged by the main festivals and I hope IFFAM can do the same for the younger generation of young filmmakers,” Chen Kaige told the media at the event.
The Chinese director won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1993 for his movie Farewell My Concubine, five years after Kingdom of Children was released and selected for the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, the first time a Chinese director was selected for the renowned festival.
Director Mabel Cheung mentioned her first production selected for festivals, her 1985 New York University Graduate Film School thesis film Illegal Immigrant, and how she considered the experience of doing her first feature production as unforgettable.
“I used non-professional actors, real illegal immigrants and gangsters from Chinatown who were all my friends. They never imagined that film was going to be shown in the big screen. I got money for monochrome from Shore Studio, HK$1 million (US$127,968) which was a lot for a student movie. I had a crew made of my classmates we were fearless and we had time to wait for the best time for lighting,” Cheung said.
Illegal immigrant was selected for the Asia Pacific Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival with Cheung winning the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director, something she says was a “complete surprise”.
“I can see that kind of energy and lack of burden [in this new directors]. We should all approach movies like they do,” Cheung added.
IFFAM’s competition this year focuses on first and second movies from young filmmakers, with the 11 selected films being, Aga, Jesus, All Good, Clean Up, Scarborough, School’s Out, Suburban Birds, The Good Girls, The Guilty, The Man Who Feels No Pain, and White Blood.
Meanwhile, Tanovic’s war movie No Man’s Land won the screenplay prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, before going on to win the Academy Award and Golden Globe for best foreign language film in 2002, an early success he said helped pave his future career.
“Being Bosnian I don’t think I would have any career if I did not make a first film that really worked. I could see my colleagues doing their first film and wait many years [until they can screen it]. What happens when you make a first film that is good it puts you on the spotlight but at least there are people interested in helping you do the second,” he said.
“We joke in Bosnia that the country has 3 million people and a good movie might not bee seen by a lot of people while a bad movie in China at least will be seen by millions of people”.
