Hainan film festival concludes, crowns Black Rabbit White Rabbit

SANYA, CHINA - Media OutReach Newswire - 12 December 2025 - The 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) formally concluded its weeklong program with the announcement of the Golden Coconut Award recipients, recognizing distinguished filmmakers from around the world whose works defined this year's edition. Shahram Mokri's Black Rabbit, White Rabbit received the festival's top honor, Best Picture, marking a significant achievement in its international trajectory.

This year's Grand Jury Prize selected two films for their innovative storytelling and artistic excellence. The prize was shared by Phantoms of July by Julian Radlmaier, and A Dance in Vain, the latest work by Lee Hong-Chi.

The festival recognized emerging international talents with its Best Director award, presented to Joel Alfonso Vargas for Mad Bills to Pay (Destiny, dile que no soy malo). This film's three performers — Destiny Checo, Yohanna Florentino, and Nathaly Navarro — jointly received Best Actress. Théodore Pellerin earned Best Actor for his performance in Pauline Loquès' film Nino.

Best Scriptwriter awards went to Sophy Romvari for Blue Heron, as well as Miguel de Zuviría and Tomás Guiñazú for Brought with the Storm. Best Visual Effect went to Ben Rivers' Mare's Nest, noted for its striking visual language. Among Chinese productions, Ye Zhenpeng's Eternal Summer received the honor for Best Chinese Contribution of the Year.

Besides Feature Film Competition, there are Feature Documentary Competition and Short Film Competition selecting the outstanding works in respective fields. Best Documentary Film was presented to Hair, Paper, Water..., directed by Nicolas Graux and Trương Minh Quý, while Special Mention awarded to Wang Yu's I Sing, I Love, I Exist. The short film jury awarded Best Short Film to L'mina (The Mine) by Randa Maroufi, and Special Mention to ā yí (Ayi) by Li Jiayi.

For further information about Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF), please visit the official website: https://www.hiiff.net/enhiiff/main.shtml

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