‘All We Imagine as Light,’ ‘April’ Lead Nominations

Two films by women directors, Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ and Dea Kulumbegashvili’s ‘April’ lead the nominations for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Both films will compete in five categories – best film, best director, best screenplay, best cinematography and best performance – it was revealed Wednesday in a nominations announcement.

Also competing for best film are Yoko Yamanaka’s Tokyo-set story of a young woman’s mental illness, “Desert of Namibia” (Japan); Neo Sora’s future Tokyo tale of perilous social surveillance “Happyend” (Japan, U.S.); and Jiang Xiaoxuan’s “To Kill a Mongolian Horse” (Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, U.S.), a portrait of a Mongolian horseman turned performer, based on a true story.

Four of the five films nominated for best film are from female directors, and in an APSA first, all five best film contenders are first or second features.

In addition to Kapadia, Kulumbegashvili and Jiang, the nominees for best director include Tato Kotetishvili for “Holy Electricity,” alongside veteran French Cambodian auteur Rithy Panh for “Meeting with Pol Pot.”

For the first time since the acting category became an ungendered best performance award, all five nominations go to women. They are: India’s Kani Kusruti for “All We Imagine as Light, Georgia’s Ia Sukhitashvili for April, Japan’s Yuumi Kawai for “Desert of Namibia,” Kazakh performer Madina Akylbekova for “Madina” and Iranian Soheila Golestani for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”

“In 2024, two thirds of our nominated films are debut or second films, representing the cinematic excellence of the next generation of Asia Pacific voices, and the unique and compelling stories they are choosing to tell,” said APSA chair Tracey Vieira.

The awards will be presented Nov. 30 at a ceremony in Gold Coast, Queensland, following the four-day Asia Pacific Screen Forum (Nov. 27-30). Four recipients of the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund grants of $25,000, wholly supported by the Motion Picture Association, Asia Pacific, will also be announced at the ceremony.