The full nominees of the 61st Golden Horse Awards were announced today (October 2nd) by CEO of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee, WEN Tien-hsiang. This is another year of breaking the record for submissions, with 718 submissions in total (99 narrative feature, 2 animated feature, 68 documentary feature, 403 live-action short film, 90 documentary short film and 56 animated short film).
Dead Talents Society leads the race with 11 nods, followed by Yen and Ai-Lee and Bel Ami, both receiving 8 nominations. The five films All Shall Be Well (dir. Ray YEUNG), Stranger Eyes (dir. YEO Siew-hua), Dead Talents Society (dir. John HSU), An Unfinished Film (dir. LOU Ye) and Bel Ami (dir. GENG Jun) will compete in both Best Narrative Feature and Best Director.
Nominees for Best Leading Actor are: KING Jieh-wen (A Journey in Spring), CHANG Chen (The Embers), YAU Hawk-sau (The Way We Talk), Wanlop RUNGKUMJAD (Mongrel) and ZHANG Zhiyong (Bel Ami). With CHANG being the award winner in this category before, the other four contenders are nominated for the first time. Wanlop RUNGKUMJAD is the first Best Leading Actor nominee from Thailand.
Nominees for Best Leading Actress are: Patra AU Ga-man (All Shall Be Well), Kimi HSIA (Yen and Ai-Lee), CHUNG Suet-ying (The Way We Talk), Sylvia CHANG (Daughter's Daughter) and Sandra NG (Love Lies). Sylvia CHANG and Sandra NG are both award winners in this category before; this will be CHUNG Suet-ying’s second challenge for the trophy, right after her nomination last year, and Patra AU Ga-man also second-time nominee but first time in this category. Another first-time comer is Kimi HSIA.
Nominees for Best Supporting Actor are: LEE Kang-sheng (Stranger Eyes), MO Tzu-yi (The Embers), ZENG Guo-cheng (Yen and Ai-Lee), Daniel HONG (Mongrel) and SHIH Ming-shuai (GATAO: Like Father Like Son). All the five contenders are nominated in this category for the first time, with LEE Kang-sheng and MO Tzu-yi are both already winners for Best Leading Actor. Daniel HONG received his first nomination as Best New Performer last year, and this is his second nomination.
Nominees for Best Supporting Actress are: Sandrine PINNA (Dead Talents Society), Pets TSENG (BIG), YANG Kuei-mei (Yen and Ai-Lee), LU Yi-ching (Mongrel) and Eugenie LIU (Daughter's Daughter). This is Pets TSENG’s first Golden Horse Awards nomination and Eugenie LIU’s second in a row. They will compete with Best Leading Actress winner YANG Kuei-mei and multiple-Golden-Horse-Awards nominees Sandrine PINNA and LU Yi-ching, aiming for their first win.
In the category of Best New Director, QIU Yang (Some Rain Must Fall) is the Special Jury Award of the Encounters at Berlinale, PENG Tzu-hui and WANG Ping-wen (A Journey in Spring) won the Silver Shell for Best Director at San Sebastián International Film Festival, and CHIANG Wei-liang and YIN You-qiao (Mongrel) received Special Mention for Golden Camera at Cannes Film Festival. YE Xingyu (Three Castrated Goats) also gets selected into Asian Future Best Film Award at Tokyo International Film Festival and HO Miu-ki (Love Lies) presents a bittersweet love story.
This year, the honor of Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year goes to veteran spray painting artist, LI Si-jian. With a dedication for over 50 years in the set decoration of filmmaking, LI in his 70s still brings out the best of his work in BIG, directed by WEI Te-sheng. With a sophisticated and seasoned touch, his painting delivers delicate, realistic lights and shadows, and the clouds with layers over layers, perfectly realize the director’s vision, and beautifully blend reality and fantasy.
All the nominated films will be screened at Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival which starts from November 7th; tickets on sale from October 27th. The Golden Horse Awards Audience Choice Award will take place on November 9th and 10th, in Hualien Railway Cinema, Vie Show Cinemas Hsinchu FE21 and Vie Show Cinemas Tainan FE21 simultaneously; registration opens from October 9th. For more details, please check the Golden Horse Film Festival official website.
The 61st Golden Horse Awards Ceremony will be held on November 23rd at Taipei Music Center. For audiences in Taiwan, live broadcast will be available on TTV channel, live streaming exclusively on MyVideo along with collaborator LINE TODAY. International audiences can watch the live broadcast on StarHub (Singapore) and Astro (Malaysia); viewers from other countries/regions can watch it on TGHFF and TTV YouTube channels. More info will be released, please stay tuned.
