Love Conquers All

LOVE CONQUERS ALL by Tan Chui Mui just won the Asian Digital Film award at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

The jury for the section was headed by Cahiers du Cinema's Jean-Michel Frodon, and praised the movie as "a delicate individual drama, which improves itself by the level and subtle relation that reality digital filming makes possible".

Comments from Asian Digital Competition Jury
The Asian Digital Competition first wishes to acknowledge the high quality of the 8 films of this selection. It proves how vivid are these new trends in Asian cinema.

We also wish to underline a significant difference among these films. Some are made with digital tools but in a way which could have used film stocks as well without major difference. Others, which we consider the most significant, would not exist if not in digital. These filmic works relate with new style, new ways of telling story and looking at our contemporary world.

This is very obvious in the beautiful Chinese film to which we decided to give the Second Prize. It records everyday life in words, gestures, feelings and dreams thanks to its delicate and precise use of digital camera. This film is: Betelnut, by director Yang Heng (first feature).

The use of digital cinema is also efficient in the very moving yet artificial film we decided to award with the 1st Prize. It is, again, a first film which is promising. And it is also one of the Malaysian films in the competition. This strong presence demonstrates the unarguable blossoming of creative harmony, creative filmmaking in this country, and even beyond in Southeast Asia.

The jury is awarding its First Prize to a delicate individual drama, which improves itself by the level and subtle relation with reality digital filming makes possible. Also the intelligent use of the story being told before underlines the filmmaking cleverness, and questions our desires for stories in a challenging way.

For all these reasons, the Grand Prize is awarded to Love Conquers All by director Tan Chui-mui.

Asian Digital Competition - Jury Introduction

Jean-Michel FRODON was born in Paris in 1953. A graduate in history, he is the director of Cahiers du cinema, and was journalist and film critic at Le Monde from 1990 to 2003. He taught at the Sorbonne and National Institute of Political Science and created in 2001 an independent think-tank named “L’Exception, groupe de reflexion sur le cinema”, which brings together artists, philosophers, teachers, cultural workers to discuss the contemporary status of cinema. He has written a dozen books including Hou Hsiao-hsien (99), L’Horizon cinema (05) and Le Cinema chinois (05).

Tikoy AGUILUZ is one of the leading figures in the alternative cinema movement in the Philippines. He was co-founder and former assistant director of the U.P. Film Center. His films Mt. Banahaw, Holy Mountain (1976), Boatman (1984), Segurista (1996) and Rizal sa Dapitan (1997), have won several awards. He has served on the jury of the Berlin, Pusan, Singapore, Vesoul, Ossian’s Cinefan in Delhi and Kerala Festivals, among others. He is the chief creative force behind the Cinemanila International Film Festival.

Mabel CHEUNG received her BA in English Literature and Psychology from the University of Hong Kong, and an MFA in Film Production from the New York University Film School. She made her directorial debut with The Illegal Immigrant in 1985, followed by An Autumn’s Tale (1987), The Soong Sisters (1997), City of Glass (1998), Beijing Rocks (2001) and Traces of a Dragon (2003). Her latest production was Song of Light and Shadow (2005), a stage musical in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Chinese cinema.

Nominees: Betelnut, The Elephant and the Sea, Love Conquers All, Mid-Afternonn Barks, No Regret, Things We Do When We Fall in Love, Tuli, The Woven Stories of the Other.

Get Love conquers all's DVD here!