Asian Awards sprout. AACTA announces new Award for Best Asian film

My goodness! Now we are to have, within two weeks of each two separate awards for Asian movies. The decade long APSA event in Brisbane, to be held on November 27, will be joined by an award from the Melbourne-based Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) to be announced on December 6. AACTA seems to have got one early jump ahead by announcing its jury, to be chaired by Russell Crowe.

AACTA’s announcement said: The inaugural AACTA Award for Best Asian Film, …, reflects the popularity and importance of Asian films in Australia. The growing Chinese and Indian diaspora have had a substantial impact on Australian box office and cinema trends, and films from these thriving filmmaking nations, along with those from the esteemed industries of South Korea, Japan and 15 other countries in the region, will now be honoured and celebrated alongside Australia’s best and brightest to an increasingly diverse Australian audience. 

Full details click here

APSA has a much larger base for entries, including the countries of the Pacific as well as adopting a UN definition of what constitutes ‘Asia’, thus allowing a much broader range of entries, most notably from the Middle East.

This could get to be a serious competition.