2018 SDAFF Award Winners

ANNOUNCING THE 2018 SDAFF AWARD WINNERS

The 19th San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) announced the winners of its Asian American competition categories at the SDAFF Awards Gala held on Saturday, November 10, 2018. Top honors went to JUNE for Grand Jury Award, BITTER MELON for Best Narrative Feature, and BLOWIN’ UP  for Best Documentary Feature. Winners were selected by an independent jury of filmmakers, curators, critics, academics, and other professionals. The SDAFF Lifetime Achievement Award went to Marcus Hu, Co-Founder, Strand Releasing.

The festival continues through November 17, 2018.

Awards were distributed in the following feature film categories:
Grand Jury, Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker, and Special Jury Mention.

Awards were also given in the short film categories:
Narrative, Documentary, Animation.

See below for the full list of winners.

 

ASIAN AMERICAN COMPETITION JURY AWARDS

GRAND JURY AWARD
Huay-Bing Law’s JUNE

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
H.P. Mendoza’s BITTER MELON

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Stephanie Wang-Breal’s BLOWIN’ UP 

BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
Jeannie Nguyen’s FIRST GENERATION

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Wyatt Wu’s NAI NAI 

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Wesley Fuh’s YOKO

INTERNATIONAL SHORT
Keith Deligero’s BABYLON

SPECIAL JURY MENTION (chosen from any category)
Kulap Vilaysack  ORIGIN STORY

 

AWARDS SELECTED BY THE SAN DIEGO ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL

GEORGE C. LIN EMERGING FILMMAKER AWARD
Christopher Makoto Yogi’s AUGUST AT AKIKO’S

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Marcus Hu, Co-Founder, Strand Releasing

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER
Shinichiro Ueda, ONE CUT OF THE DEAD