Xiaozhi Rao won Best Director at the 3rd Golden Elm Flower Awards in Macau, and "Avatar 2" was selected as one of the top 10 foreign language films

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 3rd Golden Elm Flower Awards, the global first film awards of 2023, were announced in Macau. In the Chinese language film category, "Lighting Up The Stars" won Best Picture, Xiaozhi Rao was awarded Best Director for "Home Coming", the Best Actor went to Yilong Zhu for "Lighting Up The Stars", Yanshu Wu and Meijuan Xi tied for Best Actress for "Song of Spring".

Sunny Chan won Best Screenwriter for "Table for Six". Ayanga got Best Supporting Actor for “In Search of Lost Time”. Xi Qi earned Best Supporting Actress for “Nice View”. “To the Summit" received Best Documentary. Technical awards such as Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Art also went to their respective winners.

To encourage the creation of Chinese animations and short films, this year's Golden Elm Flower Awards for the first time included two awards: Best Animation and Best Short Film. “The New Gods: Yang Jian” won Best Animation. "The Greater Director", directed by Lei Xu and starring Hao Ning and Zhangke Jia, received Best Short Film. Short film is one of the future directions of the global film industry. Aollywood has always attached great importance to the creation and production of short films. The Global Youth Short Film Competition, organized by Aollywood Film Workers Association, Aollywood Youth Creativity Center and Nezha Youth Film Group, was officially launched worldwide on January 1 this year.

In the selection of foreign language films, "Triangle of Sadness", "Decision to Leave", "Avatar: The Way of Water", "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Everything Everywhere All at Once", "The Banshees of Inisherin", "Tár", "The Beasts", "Holy Spider", "Athena" were awarded the 10 Best Foreign Language Films for the Golden Elm Flower Awards.

The jury of the 3rd Golden Elm Flower Awards are chaired by Hu Jianli, Secretary General of the Aollywood Film Critics Association, with renowned film scholars, media professionals and curators such as Yabin Suo, Ziwen Song, Fan Liu and Haige Wang as jurors, and the selection is for Chinese language films released in China and foreign language films released worldwide in 2022.