By Utpal Borpujari / New Delhi
Payal Kapadia’s Cannes award winner “A Night of Knowing Nothing”, Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s powerful “Writing With Fire” and P S Vinothraj’s debut Tamil film “Koozhangal” (Pebbles) have received top nominations at the 14th Asia Pacific Film Awards to be held in Australia.
While Kapadia’s film has received the Best Feature Film nomination, “Writing With Fire” has received the Best Documnetary Feature nomination. On the other hand, “Koozhangal” has received nominations for Achievement in Direction for Vinothraj and Achievement in Cinematography for Vignesh Kumular and Che Parthiban.
In total, 38 films from 25 Asia Pacific countries and areas have received nominations in various categories and the winners will be announced next month at the 14th APSA Ceremony at Gold Coast.
Kapadia and Vinothraj will compete with masters like Ryusuke Hamaguchi of Japan and Asghar Farhadi of Iran in their categories. Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” and Farhadi’s “A Hero (Ghahreman)”, both Cannes winners, have received nominations for Best Feature Film, Achievement in Directing, Best Screenplay and Best Performance by an Actor.
Other films to receive nominations for best feature film are Natalya Nazarova’s “The Pencil (Prostoy karandash)” from Russia and Mohammad Rasoulof’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner “There is No Evil (Sheytan vojud nadarad)” from Iran.