Udine’s Far East Film Festival Gives Double Prizes to Japan’s ‘Takano Tofu’
variety.comPatrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Takano Tofu” claimed double honors on the closing night of the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy.
It won the Golden Mulberry audience award and the MyMovies Purple Mulberry award. Directed by Mihara Mitsuhiro, “Takano Tofu” is a melodrama about an elderly tofu-making craftsman, who is stuck in his ways but is also experimental and who is kindly, but whose stubbornness brings suffering on those around him.
Udine’s Japan selector, Mark Schilling compared the work to that of master director Ozu Yasujiro. The prizes were handed out in the early hours of Friday after a marathon day of celebratory activity that started with Chinese director Zhang Yimou on hand for a screening of his “Raise the Red Lantern,” continued with a generous-spirited masterclass and in the evening continued with the handover of Zhang’s lifetime achievement award.
Two more films – Zhang’s “To Live” and the premiere of Herman Yau’s pacy crime actioner “Customs Frontline” – before a breezy festival awards session that began after 1am.
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