Macau 2016: First Edition Awards THE WINTER, SAINT GEORGE and Crouching Tigers Projects

The inaugural International Film Festival and Awards Macau closed on Tuesday night with a star-studded awards gala, in which Argentinean thriller The Winter, from director Emiliano Torres, was awarded the top prize.

The jury, comprising of Jury President Shekhar Kapur as well as Jung Woo-Sung, Stanley Kwan, Makiko Watanabe and Giovanna Fulvi warded the runner-up Jury Prize to Adam Smith's British crime drama Trespass Against Us, which also collected the Best Actress prize for Lindsey Marshal.

Best Director went to Portuguese filmmaker Marco Martins for Saint George, while his leading man Nuno Lopes was named Best Actor. Best New Performer went to Jennifer Yu for Tracy Choi's Sisterhood, which also collected the ‘Eye of the Audience’ Macao Audience Choice Award.

Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley won the Best Screenplay Award for Free Fire, and Brazilian film Elon Doesn't Believe in Death won the Best Technical Contribution Award for its score and production design.

As previously announced, Yeon Sang-ho's blackbuster Train to Busan was awarded Variety’s Asian Blockbuster Film 2016 Award.  

In addition to the film programmes, IFFAM also featured the Crouching Tigers Project Lab, a three-day project pitching competition, which awarded prizes to four projects still in development. The international jury panel of sponsors and film professionals commented, "The high quality of the projects and filmmakers resulted in a difficult decision, so the jury decided to award 4 projects instead of 3, as initially planned.”

The cash awards, of US$10,000 each, awarded by Fox International Productions (two awards), Ivanhoe Pictures and Huace Media (USD 10,000)went to: