Despite a running time of five hours, the Filipino thriller Batang West Side, directed by Lav Diaz, beat 14 other contenders to win the Best Asian Feature Film prize at the Silver Screen Awards of the 15th Singapore International Film Festival (April 11-27).

Quantity with quality paid dividends for Batang West Side (pictured, top) which triumphed over a field of strong contenders including competition favourites such as Camel(s) (Korea), and two Chinese films Quitting and Seafood.

The award for Best Director was claimed by the Turkish filmmaker Semih Kaplanoglu for his debut feature Away From Home.

Zhu Wen's Seafood won the Special Jury Prize, with Jia Hongsheng from Quitting winning Best Actor and Dian Sastrowardoyo from Indonesia's coming-of-age story Whispering Sands, earning Best Actress.

The FIPRESCI prize, jointly awarded with the Asian film critics association NETPAC, was won by the edgy Indonesian film Eliana, Eliana (pictured, middle) directed by Riri Riza, who also won the Singapore Film Commission's Young Cinema award. The modern Thai film I-San Special from director Mingmongkol Sonakul received FIPRESCI's special mention.

The winners were announced at the lavish Silver Screen Awards ceremony on April 25, where the main buzz was generated by the digital film section. The festival founder and chairman, Geoff Malone, emphasised the importance of digital filmmaking in Singapore, asserting that with its advanced computer technology, the island state should and could become the regional hub for digital filmmaking.

In recognition of this, the festival introduced two new awards for Best Asian Digital Film. The critics prize went to the Malaysian internet-specific project Lost, (pictured, bottom) directed by Amir Muhammad, while the audience prize was won by In Search Of Afghanistan by local film-makers Melvinder Kanth and Ismail Ishak.