Canadian film The Fight by director Anais Barbeau-Lavalette won the top prize in the New Talent section of the 2008 Taipei Film Festival last Saturday.
Barbeau-Lavalette won the Grand Prize of NT$1 million for her film which tells how Jessy, 12, dreams of escaping life in a Montreal slum by learning wrestling only to have his world shattered when he finds out that professional wrestling is staged.
At the award-presenting ceremony, Barbeau-Lavalette said she was excited because this was the first award her 1997 film has won.
PHOTO: AFP
Barbeau-Lavalette began her filmmaking career in 2000 while studying at Quebec's Institut National de l'Image et du Son.
She has made 15 documentaries. The Fight was her first fiction film.
The second prize, the Special Jury Prize, worth NT$350,000, was given to 57,000 Kilometres Between Us by French director Delphine Kreuter.
The Special Mention Prize went to Wonderful Town by Thai director Aditya Assarat.
British comic Sacha Baron Cohen is to play detective Sherlock Holmes in a spoof movie based on Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary supersleuth, Daily Variety reported on Wednesday.
Baron Cohen - who shot to international stardom as a hapless Kazakh journalist in the hit mockumentary Borat - will team up with Will Ferrell, who is to play Holmes' faithful sidekick, Doctor Watson.
Variety reported that the as-yet-untitled film will be co-produced by Jimmy Miller and Judd Apatow, the brains behind a string of hit comedies including The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad.
The movie will see Baron Cohen and Ferrell united for the first time since their appearance together in the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights.
The Oscars are eight months away and the film hasn't even been released, but Heath Ledger's performance in his last film is already generating talk of a rare posthumous Academy Award.
Australian heartthrob Ledger, who died of an accidental drug overdose in New York in January aged 28, appears in cinemas later this month as comic-book hero Batman's chilling arch-enemy, The Joker, in The Dark Knight.
Ledger's creepy rendition of the classic role has already wowed a handful of critics invited to sneak previews for the film, which opens in North America on July 18, with several describing the performance as Oscar-worthy.
"I can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker," wrote Rolling Stone's film critic Pete Travers.
"If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up," Travers said.
Sam Rubin, a respected entertainment correspondent for Los Angeles KTLA network, said Ledger would "absolutely be nominated for an Oscar, and at this point in the year is a hands-down favorite to win it posthumously."
"Ledger offers perfect pitch, perfect tone, his Joker hits all the right notes," Rubin added.
The cast and crew of The Dark Knight were similarly wowed by Ledger's presence on set.
British actor Gary Oldman, who plays Gotham City police officer Lieutenant Jim Gordon, is among those who believes Ledger's performance is Oscar-worthy.
"The Academy doesn't always recognize work in this kind of genre, but I think he's probably going to get an Oscar nomination," Oldman told reporters at a publicity event in Beverly Hills.
The film's director Christopher Nolan said Ledger, renowned for taking on difficult, edgy roles during his career, was chosen for the film precisely for that reason.
"For the role of The Joker I was looking for fearlessness," Nolan said. "I needed a phenomenal actor, but he [Ledger] also had to be someone unafraid of taking on such an iconic role.
"Heath created something entirely original. It's stunning, it's captivating and it's going to blow people away."
A comedy that triggered protests among Hindu groups in India and the US has been approved for screening in Singapore, news reports said on Wednesday.
The Board of Film Censors said that The Love Guru does not denigrate any religion but limited viewers to those 16 and over because of its raunchy humor.
Protestors elsewhere said that the film appeared to be lampooning Hinduism and used Hindu terms frivolously.
"We thought it was much ado about nothing," the Straits Times quoted Vijay Chandran, chairman of the Films Consultative Panel, as saying. The panel advises censors in the city-state.
The movie stars comedian Mike Myers, who co-wrote the script. He plays Guru Pitka, an American who grew up in India and became a Hindu wise man.
The panel is made up of 60 members drawn from diverse professions, faiths and age groups.
The movie opens in Singapore on Sept. 4. The US$62 million comedy received a drubbing by US critics when it premiered last month.- agencies
Behind a car repair business on a nondescript Thai street are the cherished pets of a rising TikTok animal influencer: two lions and a 200-kilogram lion-tiger hybrid called “Big George.” Lion ownership is legal in Thailand, and Tharnuwarht Plengkemratch is an enthusiastic advocate, posting updates on his feline companions to nearly three million followers. “They’re playful and affectionate, just like dogs or cats,” he said from inside their cage complex at his home in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Thailand’s captive lion population has exploded in recent years, with nearly 500 registered in zoos, breeding farms, petting cafes and homes. Experts warn the
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