The animated film Mui by John Wong was the grand winner of the 1st Macao Documentary Film Competition, held as part of the 6th Macao International Documentary Film Festival (MOIDF) presented in September and organised by the Art and Culture Association ‘Han-Ian Commune’ and sponsored by the Cultural Development Fund.
Mui was competing against four other films that had been shortlisted from among 20 films for the final. The submitted documentaries covered a wide range of subjects, including local professional boxers, cross-border students and family relationships.
The documentary film by John Wong, a local animator who returned to Macau three years ago, was also selected for other international film festivals this year, including the Kaohsiung Film Festival, which is one of Asia’s most famous festivals for animated short films. Mui also won the Originality Award in the Horizons category at the Paris International Animation Film Festival.
The animated film depicts the daily love-hate interactions between a grandmother and her grandson through a series of quirky voice messages on WeChat, intended to both intrigue and amuse audiences.
“The film received unanimous acclaim from the competition jurors, who felt that the work goes beyond the conventional documentary framework and fuses documentary with animation. Mui captures the emotions of the artist deeply with a high level of creativity and authenticity. Apart from its pioneering format, the film also creates new possibilities for Macau documentaries with its expanded horizon, boasting both depth and warmth,” the organisers of MOIDF stated.
“I hope that audiences will think about their intimate relationships with family members after watching Mui and learn to live with their loved ones to make life less miserable”, the filmmaker comments.
In addition to the first edition of the Macau Documentary Film Contest, MOIDF also featured 30 other remarkable works. Among the documentaries screened for audiences at the new CVG cinemas at NOVA Mall were: Love Fire, one of the most talked about films, having received several international accolades; Flee, which received three Oscar nominations; and the masterpieces of Zhou Hao, an iconic contemporary Chinese documentary filmmaker, from different stages of his career.
The theme of this year’s MOIDF was “Outsider”, referring to people living on the margins of society with little hope for success, but who all possess a small element of genuine power. The opening film Roadrunner revealed some of the secrets of Michelin-starred restaurants and chef and author, the late Anthony Bourdain. The “Taste of Portuguese” programme selected Super Natural, the impressive experimental work by Portuguese director Jorge Jácome, and O Território, which illustrates the struggle of an indigenous group from Brazil against forest exploitation.
In the “Director in Focus” programme, Zhou Hao, who excels in capturing different social aspects of China and has been crowned at the Golden Horse Awards for two consecutive years, was the focus this year. Besides the screening of his classic works, such as The Chinese Mayor and Cotton and Use, the programme also featured a masterclass for the director to interact with Macau audiences.
