Locarno, Switzerland, August 14 — Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin’s latest project Stone Turtle, which premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival 2022 last Thursday has bagged the FIPRESCI Prize.
Filmed in Terengganu in January 2022, Stone Turtle is a Malaysian-Indonesian time-traveling thriller about a woman living on Malaysia’s east coast and her deceptive entanglements with a man.
Stone Turtle was produced by Greenlight Pictures and it marks the first for a Malay language film to be selected for Locarno’s main category, the coveted Golden Leopard award.
FIPRESCI Prize is awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics / Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (FIPRESCI) to the best film in the competition. The jury of FIPRESCI consists of international film journalists.
Woo, producer Edmund Yeo and the film’s main stars Bront Palarae, Asmara Abigail, and Amerul Affendi attended the film’s premiere at the Palexpo Cinema together with some 3,000 guests.
Explained Woo, Stone Turtle not only tells a universal story that mixed genres but also highlighted Malaysia’s beautiful locations and folklores, including Legenda Batu Penyu, which forms the film’s title.
According to a Twitter post by FIPRESCI, Stone Turtle “offers a multiplicity of perspectives on urgent themes such as violence against women, the question of who has a right to citizenship, and the way we deal with our natural environment.”
“This is a film that truly inspired us through its multilayered whirlwind of perceptions and sensibilities,” wrote the jury: Dana Linssen (The Netherlands) – president, Martin Horyna (Czech Republic), Müge Turan (Turkey), Peter Kremski (Germany), Sarah Stutte (Switzerland).
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