I actually knew about this back in September, when I was in Singapore for the Singapore Short Film Festival. Maiko the Producer called me then to tell about the good news, but since the awards ceremony is in December, I didn't think there was any need to announce this earlier.
So yes, my Japanese short film KINGYO had picked up two awards from Japan's Eibunren Awards: The Semi-Grand Prix (or Silver Grand Prix) and Best New Creator (also occasionally referred to as the Best New Director award) awards.
Organized by the Japanese Ministry of Culture and the Japanese Association of Audiovisual Producers, I was told that this is the first time an independent narrative short film had ever received a major award from the association. And in order to commemorate this, I became their first ever recipient of the Best New Creator award.
Definitely very honoured by this.
The awards ceremony will be on the 2nd of December. Parents and sister are attending.
Trailer of KINGYO (click here if you cannot see embedded video)
Caught a free screening of A THOUSAND YEAR OF GOOD PRAYERS in uni yesterday evening (a day before it opens in Japanese theaters, check out Kaori Shoji's review on Japan Times). Went because I read Yiyun Li's anthology of short stories of the same name just a couple of weeks earlier (which I really enjoyed).
I received a phone call yesterday morning from the CON-CAN Movie Festival. They told me that my experimental short, FLEETING IMAGES, had won the Grand Prix.
I didn't even know about the Waseda Festival, which was held last weekend until I saw people setting up on Friday (as I was on my way to my lab to record Zhu Dan's guzheng performance).