Two Turkish films, “Ana Yurdu” (Motherland), directed by female filmmaker Senem Tüzen, and Emin Alper's “Abluka” (Frenzy), won two awards on Thursday at the 9th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Australia.
“Cemetery of Splendour,” from Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul, won the top APSA honor for best feature, the region's highest accolade in film, presented at a ceremony at Brisbane's City Hall, the organizers announced on the awards' website.
Tüzen's debut feature, a Turkish-Greek co-production, won best screenplay for its story that follows the relationship between a recently divorced urban, middle-class woman who relocates to a village in Anatolia and her conservative mother.
Alper won the Jury Grand Prize for both writing and directing “Abluka,” the story of two brothers, set in a dystopian İstanbul in the grip of political violence.
Both films are also part of “Turkish Waves,” a nine-film program focusing on Turkish art-house cinema that runs until Sunday in Brisbane on the sidelines of APSA 2015 and the 2nd Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival (BAPFF), where Turkey is this year's guest country. (Cihan/Today's Zaman)
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