Hong Kong Producer Nansun Shi to Get Locarno Film Festival Honor
The producer, whose resume includes "Infernal Affairs," which was remade into "The Departed" by Martin Scorsese, will pick up the festival's best independent producer award.
By Karen Chu
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Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs is a brilliant film in its own right, but the film that would win Martin Scorsese his first Best Picture Oscar takes the original's twists and turns to greater heights. Clocking in at nearly an hour longer than Infernal Affairs, The Departed's protagonists are more completely rendered. Their perils are more tangible and their defeats more wrenching. Plus, Jack Nicholson's turn as an increasingly paranoid Frank Costello can't be beat.
HONG KONG – The 67th Locarno Film Festival will honor Hong Kong veteran producer Nansun Shi with the Premio Raimondo Rezzonico award for best independent producer.
Shi has contributed to the Hong Kong film industry for more than three decades, especially in the international success of Hong Kong cinema through her work with Cinema City studio in the 1980s and with the Film Workshop, which she and producer and director (and her husband) Tsui Hark co-founded in 1984. She is also the the founder and chairman of Distribution Workshop.
Shi was responsible for a string of cinematic successes, including the Once Upon a Time in China series (1991-1997), A Better Tomorrow (1986), Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011), as well as Infernal Affairs (2002), which was remade into The Departed by Martin Scorsese.
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"Following Margaret Menegoz, we are delighted to pay tribute to the career of another female producer, an independent, persistent and courageous personality. Nansun Shi had the ability to shepherd the careers of a wide range of directors, and to pursue a personal trajectory within the constantly changing world of Hong Kong cinema," said Carlo Chatrian, the Locarno festival's artistic director.
Shi will attend the festival and participate in an audience discussion. A retrospective of her work will also be shown at the festival.
The 67th Locarno festival takes place in the Swiss city on Lake Maggiore Aug. 6-16.
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