Asian World Film Festival

The Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) is an annual film festival based in Los Angeles, California, founded by Kyrgyz filmmaker, Sadyk Sher-Niyaz in 2015. In its inaugural year, the festival ran from October 26 to November 2. Its awards are known as "Snow Leopard" awards.

Founding

Sher-Niyaz founded the festival in late 2014, after his own experience in running a campaign for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards (Oscars). Sher-Niyaz was the director of the Kyrgyz submission, Queen of the Mountains (Kurmanjan Datka), which according to The Hollywood Reporter was predicted asone of the top 15 contenders.[1]

Sher-Niyaz told TheWrap that he created the festival to help other Asian filmmakers in their Oscar campaigns: "I created the Asian World Film Festival to fill a void that I noticed was missing in America. There is a wealth of underrated filmmakers from our region that deserve recognition and this festival was designed to champion and promote them."[2]

The inaugural festival ran from October 26 to November 2, 2015, supported by media partners TheWrap.[2]

Board members

As of 2021, the Asian World Film Festival board members comprise Lucy Liu, Lisa Lu, David Seidler, Jean-Marc Vallée, Joan Chen, Janet Yang, David Henry Hwang, Imran Khan, Tabrez Noorani, and Sergei Bodrov.[3]

"Snow Leopard" awards

The festival awards a number of awards: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Audience Award, Special Jury Award, Jury Discretionary Prize, Lifetime Achievement, Cinematic Legacy and Rising Star,[4][5] which are prefixed by "Snow Leopard".[3][5]

In 2021, renowned Vietnamese-American Artist Sir Daniel K. Winn was commissioned to create a new Snow Leopard award which was first awarded at closing ceremonies of the 7th edition of the festival on November 6th, 2021.

2020/2021 editions

In its postponed 6th edition in March 2021, nearly 40 films from over 20 countries were presented over six days. They included 11 Oscar submissions for Best International Feature Film (the name of the category having changed in 2020), and 12 which were submitted for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Circus of Life, by Pakistani director Sarmad Sultan Khoosat, won the Snow Leopard Award for Best Film, while Better Days, by Hong Kong director Derek Tsang was awarded the Snow Leopard Special Jury Award.[5]

The 2021 festival (7th edition) is scheduled to run from 1–11 November 2021.[3]

References
  1. Feinberg, Scott. "Feinberg Forecast". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  2. "TheWrap Partners With Asian World Film Festival for Inaugural Year". www.thewrap.com. TheWrap. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  3. "Home". Asian World Film Festival. Archived from the original on September 6, 2021. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  4. "Awards". Asian World Film Festival. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  5. Leiber, Sarah Jae (March 17, 2021). "6th Annual Asian World Film Festival Announces Winners". Broadway World. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
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