NEW DELHI: Mikhail Red is the joint winner of the inaugural Best New Director Award at the 33rd Vancouver International Film Festival for his debut feature, the surveillance thriller Rekorder.
 
The jury - comprised of Sydney-based professor Ben Gibson, Vancouver-based critic Kim Linekin and Québec-based programmer Roland Smith - called it ‘an ambitious, urgent and passionate film about the underside of contemporary urban life.’
 
Rekorder stars Ronnie Quizon as a one-time cinematographer who now illicitly records films in cinemas that he sells to counterfeiters. When he inadvertently sells footage of a violent robbery, the video goes viral.

Red shared the prize with Axelle Ropert for her French romance Miss and the Doctors (Tirez la langue, mademoiselle), which the jury described as ‘a beautifully realised romantic drama, intelligent and full of love for its characters’.
 
Red's thriller premiered in the New Breed section of the Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival last summer and had its international premiere in the Asian Future section of last year's Tokyo International Film Festival.
 
Other Asian films eligible for the award were Suzuki Yohei's Ow from Japan, Andri Cung's The Sun, the Moon and the Hurricane from Indonesia, and ChiennHsiang's Exit from Taiwan.