Short Film News (SFN)- The Busan International Film Festival on Friday handed out its major awards for young Asian filmmakers to Iranian director Morteza Farshbaf's " Mourning" and Filipino director Loy Arcenas's "Niño."

At the 16th edition of the annual film event, a total of 13 productions from 12 countries and regions across Asia had vied for two awards in the New Currents section for first or second time Asian directors.

"Mourning" is a road movie about a deaf couple who are struggling with the effort of how to tell their nephew that his parents have died in a car accident, when they are travelling to Tehran to reunite him with his parents.

In a statement, the five-person New Currents jury headed by China's Hong Kong-based director Yonfan said the movie is "a very confident attempt to create a new film language that is disturbing at times and heart-warming from moment to moment."

They praised that the movie establishes "a new standard of cinematic poetry."

"Niño" follows the story of a family entangled by greed, set within the world of opera. The jury explained in the statement that the film is "a well-scripted, finely interpreted, superbly directed film that turns a familiar family saga to a new Aria in an opera."

The two winning films will receive a cash award of 30,000 U.S. dollars each.

Jury chair Yonfan said what he and other jury members looked at while selecting the final choices for the New Currents section were whether the filmmakers have honesty and if they bring something new into the cinema.

The New Currents awards are to be officially presented at the film festival's closing ceremony on Friday night.