Wong Kar Wai honoured at Imagineindia with Lifetime Achievement Award |

The director will be honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th edition of Imagineindia to take place in Madrid.

Wong Kar Wai is a Hong Kong film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films are characterised by nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, and vivid cinematography involving bold, saturated colours. A pivotal figure of Hong Kong cinema, Wong is considered a contemporary auteur and ranked third on Sight and Sound’s 2002 poll of the greatest filmmakers of the previous 25 years. His films frequently appear on best-of lists domestically and internationally.

Wong Kar Wai was born on 17 July 1958 in Shanghai. By the time Wong was five years old, his parents decided to relocate to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the family settled in Tsim Sha Tsui.

As a youth, Wong was frequently taken to the cinema by his mother and exposed to a variety of films. At school he was studying graphic design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1980, but later dropped out of college after being accepted to a training course with the TVB television network, where he learned the processes of media production.

He soon began a screenwriting career, firstly at a Hong Kong local TV series and soap operas, such as Don’t Look Now (1981), before progressing to film scripts. He worked as part of a team, contributing to a variety of genres including romance, comedy, thriller, and crime. Wong continued to write throughout the 1980s on films including Just for Fun (1983), Rosa (1986), and The Haunted Cop Shop of Horrors (1987). He is credited with ten screenplays between 1982 and 1987, but claims to have worked on about fifty more without official credit. Wong spent two years writing the screenplay for Patrick Tam’s action film Final Victory (1987), for which he was nominated at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards.

Wong Kar Wai is the internationally celebrated auteur filmmaker whose unique narrative and visual style have inspired a generation of filmmakers. In their Oscar acceptance speeches, director Sophia Coppola (2004) credited Wong Kar Wai for inspiring Lost in Translation ; Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert of Everything, Everywhere All at Once lauded him for inspiring the cinematic multiverse (2023).

1 9 8 8 – As Tears Go By ( nominated for Best Director at the 8th Hong Kong Film Awards)
1 9 9 0 – Days of Being Wild ( Best Film, Best Director at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards)
1 9 9 4 – Chungking Express ( Best Film, Best Director at the 14th Hong Kong Film Awards)
1 9 9 4 – Ashes of Time ( official selection in competition at the 51st Venice Film Festival)
1 9 9 5 – Fallen Angels ( nominated for Best Film and Best Director at the 15th Hong Kong Film Awards)
1 9 9 7 – Happy Together ( won Best Director at the 50th Cannes Film Festival)
2 0 0 0 – In the Mood for Love ( won Technical Grand Prize and Best Actor at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival) . Ranked by Sight & Sound poll as “One of the Greatest Films of All Time”
2 0 0 4 – 2046 ( won European Film Award for Best Non- European Film)
2 0 0 7 – My Blueberry Nights ( Opening film – 60th Cannes Film Festival)
2 0 0 8 – Ashes of Time Redux ( World premiere – 61st Cannes Film Festival)
2 0 1 3 – The Grandmaster ( Opening film – 63rd Berlin International Film Festival; Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay at the 3 3 rd Hong Kong Film Awards)
2023-2024 – In 2023, Wong Kar Wai directed and produced the 30 episodes TV-Series BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI. Acclaimed as the “must- watch” Chinese series in 2024, it has become the most-widely talked about series in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan after its release. The series has won five Magnolia Awards at the 29th Shanghai TV Festival, including Best TV Series (China) and Best Actor in a leading role and Best Actor (leading role) at the Global OTT Awards in South Korea.
Other Honors
2 0 0 6 – Jury President at the 59th Cannes Film Festival
2 0 0 6 – French Order of Merit — National Order of the Legion of Honour
2 0 1 3 – Jury president at the 6 3 rd Berlin International Film Festival
2 0 1 3 – France’ s Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
2 0 1 5 – Artistic director for the art exhibition “ China: Through the Looking Glass” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art ( MET)