Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮)'s stark musical drama The Wayward Cloud (天邊一朵雲) won the Fipresci Award on Friday at the 55th Berlin Film Festival.
The film, starring Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng (李康生) Lu Yi-ching (陸亦靜) and Chen Hsiang-chyi (陳湘琪), is Tsai's 13th movie. It was selected in the official competition section at the 55th Berlin Film Festival, and was a runner-up for the Golden Bear Award, the top honor of the festival.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF HOMEGREEN FILMS
Although not winning the Golden Bear, Tsai expressed excitement upon taking the Fipresci Award.
"I am very honored that this is my fifth Fipresci Award. If all the film festivals let the Fipresci jury be their jury, I'm sure I will take more bigger awards," Tsai said.
The Fipresci Award is also known as the International Critics Prize, which is selected by the International Federation of Film Critics.
Tsai won the Fipresci Award in 2003 for Goodbye Dragon Inn (不散) in Venice, in 1994 for Vive L'amour (愛情萬歲), and in 1998 for The Hole (洞) in Cannes.
The story of The Wayward Cloud tells about a young man accidentally becoming a rookie male porn actor, and a former porn star seeing her career falling down.
The film features a peculiar mixture of explicit sex scenes, suggestive dancing and vintage love songs of the 1930s.
The world premiere of the film in Berlin on Feb 15 had created a media sensation at the festival, with actress Chen Hsiang-chyi giving oral sex to actor Lee Kang-sheng at the very last scene.
Members of the press were asked many questions about the more sensational aspects of the film. The press conference lasted more than three hours, longer than any other press conference in the festival's history.
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