S'pore director named Best Director at Czech film festival
Singaporean director Nelicia Low has won the Best Director prize for her feature film debut, the fencing-themed thriller Pierce, at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.
The 33-year-old, who also wrote the screenplay, took home the honour at the festival’s closing ceremony on July 6.
In her acceptance speech – in a mix of English, Mandarin and Cantonese – she thanked the jury, the festival organisers, her cast and crew, and the Taiwanese fencers who stepped in as extras for the film. She choked up thanking her parents.
“My family who’s here in this audience, thank you for travelling to be with me here tonight. To my parents, sorry I’m such a rebel daughter,” she said in English, before adding in Cantonese: “You don’t have to worry so much about me from now on.”
Low also thanked her older brother, telling him: “Kor kor (Cantonese for older brother), I love you.”
Low – a former national fencer for Singapore – took inspiration from her experience with her older brother, who has autism, to write Pierce.
The Chinese-language movie is a thriller set in Taiwan starring Taiwanese actor Liu Hsiu-fu as Zijie, a teenage fencer who reconnects with his older brother, played by Taiwanese actor Tsao Yu-ning, after the latter ends a seven-year stint in juvenile prison.
Zijie is initially convinced that his brother is innocent of the crime he was convicted for – killing an opponent during a fencing competition – but begins to question this belief.
The movie had its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary film festival and was the only Chinese-language film selected for its top-ranked Crystal Globe Competition. The Crystal Globe Grand Prix eventually went to Northern Irish director Mark Cousins’ documentary of a modernist painter, A Sudden Glimpse To Deeper Things.
In an Instagram post made after the ceremony on July 7, Low posted photos of herself at the festival and a recording of her speech. She wrote in the caption: “Thanks to my entire team again, I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Pierce is a Singapore-Taiwan-Poland collaboration, produced by Singapore production companies Potocol and Elysium Cine in partnership with Taiwan’s Flash Forward Entertainment and Poland’s Harine Films, with support from Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority, the Taiwan Creative Content Agency and the Polish Film Institute.
A local release for the film has yet to be confirmed.
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