The 17th annual Asian Film Awards (AFA) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District’s Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 10, 2024. Sixteen competitive prizes and six honorary prizes were given out.
A total of thirty-five films from 24 countries and regions were nominated for 16 prizes at the 17th AFA. From Japan, Ryusuke Hamaguchi ‘s Evil Does Not Exist received the Best Film Award and Best Original Music (Eiko Ishibashi), marking the second year in a row that Hamaguchi and Ishibashi have received AFA Awards; and Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Best Director Award with Monster, following last year’s wins with his Korean film Broker. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award for Perfect Days, his second such AFA Award following his win at the 13th AFA in 2019 for The Blood of Wolves. Perfect Days won the Best Director Award at the Japan Academy Film Prizes just days ago, and was the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Opening Film. Godzilla Minus One — which was the 36th TIFF’s Closing Film and won Best Film and many other awards at the Japan Academy Film Prizes, as well as being nominated for the American Academy Award for Best Visual Effects — won the Best Visual Effects Award (Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi, Tatsuji Nojima and the Best Sound Award (Natsuko Inoue). In addition, as previously announced, actor Ryohei Suzuki was presented with the Excellence in Asian Cinema Award for his achievements and contributions to the Asian film industry.
The AFA ceremony was held with a glamorous Red Carpet and Award Ceremony attracting participants from all over Asia and was a great success. Many nominees from Japan were on hand for the event and intermingled with the other guests, including the 17th AFA’s Jury President Kiyoshi Kurosawa, RyoheiSuzuki, who received the Excellence in Asian Cinema Award along with Korean actress Lee Young-ae, AFA Youth Ambassador Hio Miyazawa and director Daishi Matsunaga, who will attend the Egoist screening event with his two stars, the Evil Does Not Exist team (Azusa Yamazaki, Yoshio Kitagawa, Eiko Ishibashi), the Monster team (director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Yuji Sakamoto, Keiko Mitsumatsu), Rinko Kikuchi from Yoko, Shido Nakamura from Kubi along with his two children, and Mihaya Shirata from Last Shadow at First Light.
