The Osaka Asian Film Festival 2018 held the closing ceremony and announced the audience award on March 18th. The winner of the Audience Award was “Love Off the Cuff [春嬌救志明]” directed by Pang Ho-cheung (彭浩翔).
Following the ceremony, the closing film “The Name [名前]” was given its world premiere and Director Toda Akihiro (戸田彬弘) made an appearance on stage, greeting the audience and introducing the film. During his introductions, Toda commented, “Osaka feels like my home since I am from Nara prefecture. I was here for OAFF five years ago.” He next talked about the background of the film, “The original story was written by Naoki Prize-winning author Michio Shusuke (道尾秀介). Michio gave us a story 8 pages long and trusted us to develop the script from it. I was relieved when Michio liked the film the first time he saw it.”
He went on to talk about his leading actors, “Tsuda Kanji (津田寛治) is a very charming person. Event though he is experienced, he is open to direction and very supportive. Komai Ren (駒井蓮) is very new to this industry, so we did a lot of rehearsals. I told her to believe in herself and eventually she became sure of herself during the film's shoot.” He finished his talk by revealing, “My next project's story might be based in Osaka, so hopefully I can shoot it in the near future here in the city.“
The film received a warm round of applause and brought the 13th edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival to a successful conclusion.
