Celestial Pictures, the diversified entertainment company, announced today the result of its Shaw Brothers remake screenplay competition held in conjunction with the Beijing Film Academy (BFA) and Youth Film Studio (YFS). Award-winning producer and director Sylvia Chang presented the awards to the winners and shared valuable directorial insights with the attending guests.

The screenplay competition is part of Celestial Pictures' “New Directors Workshop” (NDW) program which was created to discover and nurture new Chinese filmmakers through mentorships and production opportunities utilizing the world renowned Shaw Brothers Film Library.

“Celestial Pictures is proud to announce the winners of the New Directors Workshop and we look forward to nurturing the unique visions of these talented writers and directors with the help of Sylvia, the Beijing Film Academy and Youth Film Studio,” said Mr. Ross Pollack, CEO of Celestial Pictures. “This is just the beginning of a program which we hope will lead to more collaboration among the three parties to provide opportunities for promising directors to have their visions realized.”

“The selection process was really difficult as most of the scripts we received were very creative and full of imagination. I do appreciate all of the contestants for their passion and creativity.” Sylvia Chang said.

Besides being one of the judges of the competition, Ms. Chang also advised the finalists throughout the script development process.

The winner of the Shaw Brothers remake screenplay competition is Tian Li’s re-interpretation of Love with the Perfect Stranger (which won the Hong Kong Film Award’s Best Screenplay and Best Actress in 1995). The second and third runner-ups are Huang Huang’s version of Loving You (originally directed by Johnnie To) and Wang Mengyuan’s update on The Lady is the Boss (which originally starred Shaw icon Kara Hui).  Ms. Chang will mentor the winner Tian Li and in cooperation with Celestial Pictures, help produce his script. Celestial Pictures will also work closely with BFA and YFS and jointly produce the screenplays.

The Shaw Brothers remake screenplay competition, launched in 2011, was open to BFA's 2011 graduating class as well past graduates of BFA’s directors program. The contestants had to submit original treatments based on one of ten pre-selected movies from the Shaw Brothers Film Library. Six finalists were then selected and given funds to develop their treatments into full-length screenplays.