Chinese superstar actress and producer Fan Bingbing will be the recipient of the Singapore International Film Festival’s (SGIFF) Cinema Icon Award in 2023.
The festival will screen three of Fan’s films curated by her – the recent “Green Night”, “Buddha Mountain” and “Double Xposure” – and the star will walk the red carpet on the opening night on 30 November. As previously announced, Malaysian Cannes winner and Oscar contender “Tiger Stripes” will open SGIFF.
The Cinema Icon Award and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Award will be reintroduced. They were last part of the SGIFF Silver Screen Awards in 2019 and 2006 respectively. Past winners of the Icon Award include Michelle Yeoh (Malaysia), Simon Yam (Hong Kong), Koji Yakusho (Japan), Joan Chen (USA/China) and Yao Chen (China).
This year, the Outstanding Contribution to Southeast Asian Cinema Award will be presented to White Light Post in recognition of its award-winning achievements in post-production.
The 2023 edition of SGIFF sees the highest number of films by Singaporean directors selected for competition since 1997. Nominees for the Asian Feature Competition include Jow Zhi Wei’s Tomorrow is a Long Time, Nelson Yeo’s Dreaming and Dying and Nicole Midori Woodford’s Last Shadow at First Light.
The jury for the Asian Feature Film Competition is chaired by Chinese auteur Zhang Lu. Other jury members are Bina Paul (India), Janice Koh (Singapore), Ayşe Polat (Germany) and Kong Rithdee (Thailand). The FIPRESCI jury members are V.K. Joseph (India), Müge Turan (Turkey) and Joyce Yang (Hong Kong). The jury for the South East Asian Short Film Competition includes Cho Hyun Jin (Korea-UK), Shai Heredia (India) and Tan Bee Thiam (Singapore).
