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span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">Film festival: Director Asghar Farhadi holds his daughter. A stand-out film this year is A Separation, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi from Iran, with three nominations: Best Feature Film, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Screenplay. JP/Cynthia WebbThe fifth Asia Pacific Screen Awards nominations were revealed on Oct. 10 at the Busan Film Festival.

The founder of the festival, Kim Dong-ho, is a patron of APSA. The jury president for APSA 2011, Nansun Shi, a leading film producer from Hong Kong, made the announcements.

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards is an initiative of the Queensland Government and is held at Gold
Coast City, an hour’s drive south of Brisbane.  

Two hundred and forty films were submitted, including five from Indonesia. But it was disappointing to note that this year no films from Indonesia qualified for a nomination.

The list of nominated films totals 37.  In the first three years of APSA, Indonesian films were nominated, and Denias Singing on a Cloud by John DeRantau won the award in the Best Children’s Feature Film category. Other Indonesian films that have received nominations in past years were Opera Jawa by
Garin Nugroho, and 3 Doa, 3 Cinta by Nurman Hakim.

At APSA 2010, Christine Hakim was an honored guest, receiving the FIAPF Award (International Federation of Film Producers Association) for outstanding achievement in film. Indonesian producer/director Nan Achnas served on the nominations council that year.

Nan commented to me that she realized then how high the standards required by APSA were, and so felt even more honored that the film she produced, 3 Doa, 3 Cinta, had received a nomination the previous year.

A stand-out film this year is A Separation, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi from Iran, with three nominations: Best Feature Film, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Screenplay. Two years ago, Farhadi was at APSA with his film About Elly, which won the APSA’s Jury Grand Prize and Best Screenplay. The actor Peyman Moadi had already won Best Performance by an Actor in Berlin, and is now nominated at APSA for the same film.

In 2010, APSA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched the MPAA/APSA Academy Film Fund, to be granted annually to four aspiring filmmakers. Asghar Farhadi received US$25,000 and A Separation is the result.

His film has already won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, the first Iranian film ever to win that prestigious award. It also received the Sydney Film Festival Prize.

Iranian and Indonesian filmmakers have certain things in common. Both are Muslim majority nations and must work within very restrictive conditions and face strict censorship.

Screenplays must be submitted to the censor board before commencing shooting, and there are quite a few taboo subjects that must not end up on screen.

At present, one of Iran’s most widely known directors, Jafar Panahi , is awaiting an appeal against his 6-year jail sentence and 20-year ban on filmmaking because he criticized the legality of a recent election in his country and is accused of propaganda against the Republic of Iran.

Several leading Indonesian filmmakers have mentioned to me their frustrations with the limitations imposed on them.

The Indonesian government does not offer funding to foster its national film industry, as does Iran (albeit, under restrictive conditions in the latter case).  However, the best Iranian films find it hard to get distributed in local cinemas, even if they may have won prizes overseas and are appreciated by home audiences via downloads or DVDs.

However, to their credit, Iranian directors (some of whom described being up against immense censorship difficulties at an APSA press conference several years ago), still manage to create world-class cinema. We look forward to the time when more Indonesian films match this quality of cinematic excellence.

Indonesia has a small number of dedicated, talented and committed directors who aim for high standards and are not just in it for the money.

Sometimes they make films of a standard high enough to be accepted in major overseas film festivals. But Indonesian audiences don’t seem to be interested in “art house” cinema, and just want an entertaining night out at the multiplex.

It seems that the majority of audiences are not yet cinema literate and do not know how to appreciate art house films, judging by the short runs that certain films have received in Indonesian cinemas.

The difficulty of getting funding for “serious” films, the distribution conditions within Indonesia, plus the censorship restrictions are all making the careers of local filmmakers very difficult.  

Governments that have understood the value of a high quality film industry and have offered support to assist creative filmmakers have been well rewarded by respect flowing to them from the outside world. It enhances a country’s image.

When Australia’s government fostered the film industry, it helped create a tourist boom back in the 1980s.  Let’s hope that sometime soon, the Indonesian government will realize this so far undeveloped opportunity to publicize and educate the world about how interesting and culturally rich Indonesia is. High quality films represent high quality culture to the world.

APSA requires that films must represent the culture from which they originate so that the audience will gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of that culture.

The films must serve the purpose of uniting the world’s people, and also exhibit the highest cinematic excellence. Films with no worth except entertainment and a few thrills cannot really make it through the APSA nomination process.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia by the famous Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has four nominations, and Mohammad Rasoulof’s Goodbye has three. He won Best Director at Cannes this year for this work. Let the Bullets Fly, written and directed by Jiang Wen of China, has received two nominations. Wedding Planners from India, directed by first timer Maneesh Sharma, completes the list of five nominations in the Best Feature Film category.

When I look at the names of legendary directors who have submitted their films to APSA this year but yet didn’t receive a nomination, (the likes of Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Aparna Sen, John Woo and Tsui Hark, Fred Schepisi, Julia Leigh), it tells me that the nominated films must be of an amazingly high standard.

This year, for the first time, the Academy membership has taken part in the nominations process along with the past jury and nomination council members.  The membership includes filmmakers who have previously gained nominations or awards at APSA. The 2011 nominations council consisted of eight leading filmmakers and experts from the Asia Pacific region.

The APSA awards ceremony will be held on Nov. 24.