"Disgrace" by Australia director wins prize at Taipei Film Festival

Jul 3, 2009, 13:48 GMT

   Taipei - The film Disgrace by Australian director Steve Jacobs on Friday won the grand prize in the New Talent Competition at the Taipei Film Festival.

   The jury awarded the grand prize, worth 600,000 Taiwan dollars (18,000 US dollars), to Disgrace for its 'its profound insight in contemporary political conflicts as well as in the resulting conflicts of the human soul,' the organizing committee said.

   'We look forward to seeing more films of excellence by him [Jacobs] in the near future,' the jury said.

   Disgrace is adapted from the 1999 Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name by the South African-born author JM Coetzee. It tells the story of a South African professor, played by John Malkovich, who loses everything because of a relationship with a student in post-apartheid South Africa.

   He is thrown into turmoil again after moving to his daughter's farm when the farm is attacked and he and his daughter attacked.

   The Maid by Sebastian Silva (Chile), The Dark Harbour by Takatsugu Naito (Japan) and Breathless by Yang Ik-june (South Korea) won special mention awards.

   The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around The Corner by Stephan Komandarev (Bulgaria) won the Audience Choice Award.

   The Taipei Film Festival has two competitions, one for new talent, which is open to unscreened foreign films, and one for Taiwan films. The film festival is to close July 12 when awards for the Taiwan films are issued.

   A total of 141 films were being shown at the festival.