My dear friend, the incredibly talented filmmaker, and artist, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, kindly joined me in judging and awarding the films submitted to the async International short film competition. Out of 675 eligible films, serendipitously we both chose the same film to win our respective awards. Upon discussing this interesting coincidence, Apichatpong decided to choose another film for his award, Michael Basov’s Poetry of Banality.

He says "I appreciate the evocation of early cinema’s spirit in which simple gestures are marvelled. One can imagine that the filmmaker was taking pleasure in hanging out, looking for images but found none but the flowers and a mobile phone. The seemingly purposeless mission turns into a poetry of love and of light addiction. This expression jumps between the composed and the candid, primitive and contemporary. Ryuichi’s tune conspires to make this film a light of loneliness."

I like and respect his choice.

-Ryuichi Sakamoto