Silver Screen Awards: 'Ah Girl' Takes Top Prize in Singapore

Ang Geck Geck Priscilla's debut feature "Ah Girl" won best film in the Asian Feature Film Competition at the Silver Screen Awards on Saturday, closing out the main competition of the 37th Singapore International Film Festival. The jury also named Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat best director for "No Good Men."

The festival began Oct. 22, when Indian actor Aamir Khan received the SGIFF Screen Icon Award from Peter Chan during an In Conversation With session. Two days later, on Oct. 24, Boo Junfeng presented Kore-eda Hirokazu with the SGIFF Cinema Honorary Award. Kore-eda released two features this year, "Sheep in the Box" and "Look Back." The SGIFF Pro Pitching Forum ran Oct. 30, awarding "Agape" from Yamaguchi Shin and Miyahara Takuya, "Dear Son An" from Lệ Diễm Hà, "Beg, Borrow, Steal" from Tong Khoon Mun and Zhou Ke Xin, and "Primal" from Sam Chua Weishi and Rein Maychaelson. The Silver Screen Awards ceremony took place the following day at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre.

"Ah Girl" follows a seven-year-old girl in 1990s Singapore whose parents have separated. Ang workshopped the project at the festival's Southeast Asian Film Lab in 2015, and the film later won the Youth Jury Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Ang studied at the Busan Asian Film Academy, and her 2012 short "Broken Crayon" took best short film at the Singapore Short Film Awards. She is based in Singapore.

Sadat's "No Good Men" opened the Berlinale. The film is set in Kabul shortly before the Taliban return to power and follows a camerawoman whose work, family and freedom come under threat. Sadat has lived in Germany since 2021; her earlier features are "Wolf and Sheep," which premiered at Cannes in 2016, and "The Orphanage" in 2019.

The jury divided the best performance award between Pushpa Thing Lama for "Elephants in the Fog" and Putri Marino for "Four Seasons in Java." "Elephants in the Fog" concerns a member of Nepal's third-gender Kinnar community searching for her missing daughter. "Four Seasons in Java" follows a woman returning to her hometown after two decades in prison. Japanese director Nagahisa Makoto received the Special Jury Prize for "Burn," his second feature, which premiered at Sundance.

In the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition, Arief Budiman's "Golden Island" won best Southeast Asian short, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke took best director for "The Bovine Comedy," Berthold Wahjudi won the shorts Special Jury Prize for "'Vaterland' or A Bule Named Yanto," Sarah Lingam received best performance for "Flame of the Forest," and Exyl's "Singapore God" was named best Singapore short. The Audience Choice Award went to "Second Life, Second Skin," a package of five shorts in the Singapore Panorama Programme 2. The Silver Screen Awards launched in 1991 as the first international film competition with a dedicated section for Asian cinema. The festival runs through Nov. 1.