Park Chan-wook’s romantic thriller Decision to Leave emerged as the clear favorite when the 2023 Asian Film Awards nominations were unveiled Friday. The Korean maestro’s acclaimed feature, which won best director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is shortlisted for an Oscar in the best international film category, scored 10 nominations, including best film, best director, best screenplay, and many of the major acting and craft categories.
Decision to Leave will face off in the best film category against Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2022 Oscar winner Drive My Car, Kazakhstan film Poet by Darezhan Omirbaev, India’s Ponniyin Selvan: I from Mani Ratnam, and the Philippines’ When the Waves Are Gone from Lav Diaz.
The Asian Films Awards (AFA) were inaugurated in 2007 and are organized by an academy established by the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Busan festival and the Tokyo festival. Their remit is to honor the greatest achievements in cinema from across the diverse filmmaking traditions of the Asia Pacific region. The 2023 Asian Film Awards will be held in Hong Kong on March 12. For this year’s ceremony, which will take place at Hong Kong’s new Palace Museum the night before the Filmart content market makes its in-person return for the first time since the start of the pandemic, some 30 films, produced in 22 different regions, will compete across 16 awards categories.
Chinese director Zhang Yimou has been appointed as the jury president for the 2023 AFAs. Zhang, a Golden Bear winner in Berlin, a two-time Venice Golden Lion winner, and a winner of the Cannes Grand Prix, will lead a panel of seven film figures from around the world to decide on the winners of this year’s awards.
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