The jury for the 6th Asian Film Awards. [Photo: asianfilmawards.asia]

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (HKIFFS) recently announced details of Road to AFA, a behind-the-scenes video series on Asian cinema to be screened in the run-up to the 6th Asian Film Awards (AFA). Road to AFA offers an inside view of Asia's burgeoning film industry and the nominees for this year's awards. HKIFFS also launched the People's Choice Awards at the same time, giving the public the chance to participate directly in this year's AFA. Both programmes are aimed at introducing the AFA to more people and territories throughout the region.

Road to AFA

The first ever such video series created for the AFA, Road to AFA is one of the big build-up campaigns to the Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony. It is a video series of approximately 18 episodes of three minutes each featuring renowned filmmakers, nominees behind the scenes footage, and look at the film industries of selected regions including Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines). The series will provide greater insight into the films and filmmakers that the AFA celebrates and help to raise public awareness of the awards.

Interviewees include directors HOU Hsiao-hsien, Teddy SOERIAATMADJA and Brillante MENDOZA, actors Donny DAMARA and KO Chen-tung, actresses Eugene DOMINGO and GWEI Lun-mei, cinematographer CHIN Ting-chang and editor Lee CHATAMETIKOOL among many others.

The episodes will be available to view on the AFA website (http://www.asianfilmawards.asia) and will be screened on various broadcast television and online channels in the region, including CCTV-6 (China Movie Channel), Phoenix TV, STAR Chinese Movies, STAR World, StarHub, Yahoo! and many more in the lead-up to the 6th Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony, which will be held on 19 March 2012.

People's Choice Awards

The People's Choice Awards are open to public voting, enabling audiences from all overseas countries to have their voices heard at Asia's leading celebration of the film industry by voting for the nominee in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories that they feel most deserve recognition for their work in 2011. Previous winners include CHOW Yun-fat, JEON Do-yeon, WANG Xueqi, and LI Bingbing.

Voters who correctly pick one or both winners of the People's Choice Awards will be entered into a lucky draw to experience the star-studded 6th Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony.

Participating Hong Kong residents have a chance to win ten admission tickets to the 6th Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony. Overseas voters (non-Hong Kong residents) have a chance to win a Hong Kong travel package for two, including two roundtrip economy class air tickets, two nights hotel accommodation stay in Hong Kong from 18–20 March 2012, and two admission tickets to the Asian Film Awards Presentation Ceremony. Five winners will be drawn from Hong Kong entrants, and five from overseas.

The voting period runs from Feb. 13 to 5 March 2012 (12:00 noon HKT) on the official AFA website (http://www.asianfilmawards.asia). Log on today to register your vote and for a chance of rubbing shoulders with the stars of Asian cinema!