Tan's Love Conquers All, about a young woman involved in an unconventional relationship in the big city, was presented with the Golden Digital Award, while Yang's Betelnut, about two teenaged lovers, took the Silver award.
The two films were jointly awarded Best New Asian Filmmaker of the Year in the New Currents section of the Pusan International Film Festival last year. Love Conquers All also picked up a VPRO Tiger Award at this year's Rotterdam film festival.
Betelnut was also presented with the prize of the FIPRESCI jury at the HKIFF.
The jury of the Asian Digital Competition praised the high quality of the eight films in this section, particularly the Malaysian entries, which they said underlined the strength of digital filmmaking in Malaysia today.
Meanwhile the Humanitarian Award for best documentary went to Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's Nanking, about the violent invasion of what was then China 's capital in 1937. The Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary went to Israeli-French film Potosi, The Journey, directed by Ron Havilio, about the Peruvian town which once had vast silver reserves.
Amongst other prizes, the SIGNIS Catholic award went to Russian director Andrei Kravchuk's The Italian, about a six-year-old boy searching for his birth mother, while runner-up prizes went to another Russian film, Pavel Louguine's The Island, and Hungarian filmmaker Agnes Kocsis' Fresh Air.
The grand prize in the 2nd Fresh Wave Short Film Competition went to Jevons Au's Merry X'mas. However jury members commented that they had not seen a wide range of genres in the competition and urged the organisers to seek out more diverse films next year.
The HKIFF wraps on April 11 while Hong Kong's month-long Entertainment Expo ends on April 15 with the Hong Kong Film Awards.
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