Wang Lina's debut film wins Beijing festival jury award

Female filmmaker Wang Lina's directorial debut A First Farewell took home the Jury Award of the main competition, one of the top honors of the 4th New Era Film Festival in Beijing on Thursday.

Inspired by true events, the film is about of Isa, a good-hearted boy who takes care of his deaf mother in rural Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

In November last year, the movie won the best film in the Asian Feature section of the Tokyo International Film Festival. Earlier this year, it got overseas recognitions again to win the best film award from the international jury of the Generation Kplus films at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, according to American industry magazine Hollywood Reporter.

The New Era festival has received 914 films to contend for the main competition awards, with half of all the submissions being directorial debuts.

Among the other award winners in the main section of the competition was US-educated Hao Zheng's The Chef. which is about a traditional chef who is forced to train a humanoid how to cook Chinese food in a futuristic world where all jobs are done by robots. It won the prize for best director.

Meanwhile, Chen Chen got the prize for best short drama; The Menarche won for best script; One Year in a Wat won for best short documentary and Summer behind the Door was the best short animated film.