Ethnic Mongolian director Saqi Rengui, the winner for The Back of Horse. [Photo provided to China Daily]

This year's other four winners are Black Sheep, The Apartment, 1999 and The Back of Horse.

Guizhou native Luo Bin's Black Sheep is a noir comedy that examines a mischievous child's world.

Directed by Beijing Film Academy-educated Lisa Chen, The Apartment centers on three short stories all connected to a mysterious apartment, in which the previous owner was murdered.

A story conceived and directed by Luo Yan, a 1985-born literature graduate from the Central Academy of Drama, the fantastic crime thriller 1999, is about two homicide cases in southwestern China set in the titular year.

Ethnic Mongolian director Saqi Rengui's The Back of Horse follows the tough summer of a herder family in Inner Mongolian autonomous region's vast grasslands.

The Winter is Coming, the most expensive to produce among the five winners, is directed by Qu Zhixin and a winner of the Most Popular Audience Award for the 2015 Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, one of China's top honors for cinema. The film is estimated to have cost 150 million yuan ($21.6 million) to make.

Luo Yan (center), the winner for 1999. [Photo provided to China Daily]