Screen Icon Award

Lee Kang-sheng is an accomplished actor, director and screenwriter who has contributed significantly to film. Best known as Malaysian-born Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s frequent collaborator, Lee has earned critical acclaim for his performances in films such as Stray Dogs (2013), which won him Best Leading Actor at the 50th Golden Horse Awards, Taipei Film Festival and the 56th Asia-Pacific Film Festival.

As a director, Lee’s 2003 debut feature, The Missing, won the New Currents Award at Busan. A few years later, Lee wrote, directed and starred in Help Me, Eros (2007), which was nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice.

Lee stars in SGIFF’s festival opening film, Stranger Eyes, as a supermarket employee who becomes the prime suspect when a girl goes mysteriously missing.

In addition to Stranger Eyes, SGIFF will honour Lee’s achievements by screening the restored version of Tsai Ming-liang’s Vive L’Amour (1994), the Best Asian Feature Film recipient at the 8th SGIFF. In this film, Lee plays a lonely salesman selling crematorium urns who is desperate for love. The role showcases his talent for embodying complex desires and emotions with minimal dialogue. As one of Lee’s early roles as a nonprofessional actor, this distinctive performance would go on to establish him as an arthouse icon.

Yang Kuei-mei is a renowned Taiwanese actress who has won the Golden Horse Award, Golden Bell Award and SGIFF’s Best Actress Award. She began her career as a singer before becoming an acclaimed actress, earning recognition for her performances in films such as Once Again With Love (1981), Hill of No Return (1992) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

As a performer, Yang moves swiftly and effortlessly between long-suppressed emotions and passionate release, bringing her characters to life with vivid intensity. She often collaborates with prominent directors such as Tsai Ming-liang, Ang Lee, John Woo and Lee Hsing.

Yang holds the record for the most Best Performance awards at SGIFF—winning it an astounding four times in her career, including for her role in Vive L’Amour (1994), which beautifully captures the lives of three lonely people who unknowingly inhabit the same apartment in Taipei. She also stars in the 2024 film Yen and Ai Lee, which explores family dynamics and intergenerational trauma and is featured in the Horizon section of our programme this year.