Singaporean director Chiang Wei Liang receives Camera d’Or Special Mention at Cannes
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Chiang Wei Liang (left) and Yin You Qiao, winners of the Special Mention Camera d'Or Award for Mongrel.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
SINGAPORE – Singaporean director Chiang Wei Liang has received the Camera d’Or Special Mention award for his film Mongrel at the Cannes Film Festival in France, which ran from May 14 to 25.
The Camera d’Or recognises excellence in a film-maker’s first feature film while the Special Mention is conferred on films that do not win the main prize, but deserve recognition for their outstanding quality.
Mongrel stars Thai actor Wanlop Rungkumjad as Oom, a caregiver in Taiwan for the elderly and disabled who has to choose between survival and dignity.
The film, which was written and directed by Chiang and co-directed by Taiwanese Yin You Qiao, was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight section of the festival. It was produced by Singaporean Lai Weijie, and Taiwanese Lynn Chen and Chu Yun-ting.
“Some members of the public have come up to me in the last few days to tell me that they have the same job as the film’s protagonist – caring for others,” Chiang told the international media at a press conference on May 25. “The actors have also been praised in the street for their performance. We’re extremely happy about that.”
Mr Justin Ang, assistant chief executive of media, innovation, communications and marketing at the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), congratulated the winners on the award.
Chiang and Lai, along with supervising sound editor Lim Ting Li and sound editor Grace Wong, are also IMDA scholars.
“These talented individuals are showing the world how Singapore is punching above our weight in the film industry,” said Mr Ang.
Born in Singapore and based in Taiwan for the past decade, Chiang’s work focuses on the migration and diaspora of South-east Asians in modern Asia. He graduated from Nanyang Technological University with a degree in Communication Studies and completed his MFA (Film Directing) at the Taipei National University of the Arts.
Meanwhile, Anora, a film by American director Sean Baker about a young sex worker who gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch, won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.
The Best Director award went to Portugal’s Miguel Gomes for Grand Tour, which tells the story of a man who runs away from his fiancee and sets off on a tour around Asia.
American Jesse Plemons took the best actor prize for playing three different roles in anthology film Kinds Of Kindness.
The best actress prize went to the ensemble of Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Karla Sofia Gascon and Adriana Paz, who star in musical crime comedy Emilia Perez. The movie’s director, Frenchman Jacques Audiard, also received the jury prize.
