The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Alvin I. Dacanay
Four months after winning the Golden Lion at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival, Lav Diaz’s revenge drama Ang Babaeng Humayo (The Woman Who Left) continues to reap accolades abroad, the latest of which are three nominations at the 11th Asian Film Awards (AFA).
In a statement posted on its website on January 11, the Hong Kong-based AFA Academy announced that Ang Babaeng Humayo received best director and best screenplay nominations for Diaz, and a best actress nod for Charo Santos.
In the nearly four-hour, black-and-white feature, Santos plays a schoolteacher named Horacia, who was released from prison after 30 years for a crime she did not commit, and begins plotting revenge against the jealous former lover who put her there.
Vying for the best director plum with Diaz are Feng Xiaogang for China’s I Am Not Madame Bovary, Koji Fukada for Japan’s Harmonium, Na Hong-jin for South Korea’s The Wailing, and Derek Tsang for China and Hong Kong’s Soul Mate.
Among Diaz’s best screenplay co-nominees are Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi for The Salesman, which won awards for best actor and best screenplay at the 69th Cannes Film Festival last May; and South Korean helmer Park Chan-wook and co-writer Jeong Seo-Gyeong for the 1930s-set erotic drama The Handmaiden, which led the field with six nominations, including for best film.
Santos’ fellow competitors for the best actress prize are Fan Bingbing in I Am Not Madame Bovary, Haru Kuroki in Japan’s A Bride for Rip Van Winkle; Son Ye-jin in South Korea’s The Last Princess, and Kara Wai in Hong Kong’s Happiness.
Particularly noteworthy among this year’s nominees is the hit South Korean zombie movie Train to Busan, which garnered five nods, including best actor for Gong Yoo and best supporting actor for Ma Dong-seok.
“We’re most excited to be celebrating excellence in Asian cinema again in our annual awards show,” said Dr. Wilfred Wong Ying-wai, chairman of the AFA Academy and the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, in the statement.
“This year, the AFA will move back to Hong Kong, where it all began, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong SAR Government,” he added.
According to the AFA, this year’s edition of the awards will be held at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on March 21, and Chinese director Jia Zhangke will lead a jury made up of film-industry professionals, festival programmers and critics.
The nominations for Ang Babaeng Humayo are the latest the Philippines received from the AFA since its founding in 2007. Last year, Jerrold Tarog’s blockbuster biopic Heneral Luna was named in three categories: best actor for John Arcilla, best production design for Benjamin Padero and Carlo Tajibe, and best costume design for Tajibe.
In 2015, Diaz got a best director nod for Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon (From What is Before), and in 2014, Eugene Domingo was nominated for best actress for her role in Jun Robles Lana’s Barber’s Tales.
Several Filipino actors have triumphed at the AFA. In 2013, Eddie Garcia won as best actor for Lana’s Bwakaw and Nora Aunor won as best actress for Brillante Ma. Mendoza’s Thy Womb. The year before, Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino earned the best supporting actress plum for Loy Arcenas’s Niño, and Domingo nabbed the People’s Choice best actress award for Marlon Rivera’s Ang Babae sa Septic Tank (The Woman in the Septic Tank). And in 2009, Gina Pareño defeated co-nominee Jaclyn Jose, among others, to win as best supporting actress for Mendoza’s Serbis (Service).