China quake film tops Asia Pacific award nominations

A Chinese film about a family's struggle to deal with a devastating earthquake topped a list of 31 films from 15 countries nominated for the fourth annual 2010 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Tangshan dadizheng (Aftershock), the highest grossing domestic film of all time in China, received a record six nominations including for top prize, Best Feature Film, according to the Academy of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on Monday.

Actress Yu Fan is nominated for a Best Performance award for her role as the mother of two children in the Feng Xiaogang directed movie trying to cope with the aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake that killed at least 255,000 people.

The second most nominated film with four nominations is Shi (Poetry) by South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. His brother, Lee Joon-dong, produced the movie.

The film, which took the Best Screenplay award at Cannes this year, deals with the story of a grandmother searching for meaning as she confronts the aftermath of a child's death.

Rounding out the five films nominated for Best Feature were a gangster movie from Taiwan, Mengjia (Monga), a Turkish film called Bal (Honey) which is the third film in director Semih Kaplanoglu's Yusuf trilogy, and Paju from South Korea by director Park Chan-Ok.

"As the Asia Pacific Screen Awards grow in stature and recognition across our vast region, we are delighted to have in the competition some of the most high profile films and filmmakers of contemporary cinema," said APSA chairman Des Power in a statement.

The awards, set up as an international cultural initiative by the Australian state government of Queensland, will be announced on December 2 on the Gold Coast in the state of Queensland.

The winners from the nominated movies, chosen from 239 entries from 70 countries, will be decided by an international jury leaded by David Puttnam.