Heath Ledger aspired to be a film director. For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain", Ledger won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Best International Actor from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and the Academy Award for Best Actor. Posthumously, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film "I'm Not There", which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
Two Great Sheep years saw many of the leading figures of the "sixth-generation" turning in their first SARFT-approved productions, including Jia Zhangke (2004's "The World"), Zhu Wen (2004's "South of the Clouds"), and Wang Xiaoshuai (2005's "Shanghai Dreams"). "Two Great Sheep" premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2004. The film follows a peasant couple, Zhao Deshan (Sun Yunkun) and his wife Xiuzhi (Jiang Zhikun), living in rural Yunnan province near Zhaotong in southern China. Their lives are thrown into upheaval when the local mayor (Chen Dajiang) "rewards" them with two foreign sheep donated by a former villager, now