AFP - Oscar-nominated French director Jean-Jacques Beineix has some advice for younger filmmakers hungry for industry accolades -- be careful what you wish for.

"Being nominated for any award is an honour," said the 63-year-old director of "Betty Blue", who chaired the headline prize jury at the 14th Pusan International Film Festival, Asia's biggest cinematic event.

"But it can also bring with it great pressures. I think young filmmakers should be prepared for the consequences and it is up to the film community to protect them," Beineix told AFP.

The Frenchman's debut feature, 1981's "Diva", picked up four Cesars, France's highest honor for cinema. "Betty Blue" (1986), his international breakthrough, received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film.

For Beineix, the recognition was a double-edged sword.

"It is something that you enjoy as a filmmaker but it can also change your life forever. In good ways, and in a lot of bad ways," he says.

Beineix went from success as an independent filmmaker to dealing with major studios. But his career has never again hit the heady heights of those early years and he has drifted away from mainstream cinema.

The problem is that when critical acclaim comes, a filmmaker's career -- and their talent -- is often taken out of their hands.

"Everybody wants to work with you and wants you to work with them. Everybody suddenly has an opinion. You can easily forget your own vision -- and that is what brings the success in the first place," Beineix said.

Attention of another kind greeted both Hong Kong's Yonfan and Dutch director Jean van de Velde when their latest films were put forward by their countries for 2010 Oscar consideration, ahead of the October 1 deadline for submissions.

Yonfan's sumptuous drama "Prince of Tears", produced by his Hong Kong-based company, is about Taiwan's "White Terror" anti-communist campaign during the 1950s.

It was shot on the island with the help of the Taiwanese government, using Taiwanese and Chinese actors. But it has been put forward by Hong Kong for the Oscars. Taiwanese authorities and media were not amused.

Taiwan's government dropped its 30,000 US dollar subsidy "and we were in all the papers", says Yonfan, who like van de Velde has been showing his film at this week's South Korean festival.

"It is a great privilege to be even mentioned for an award like an Oscar but then you find everybody is talking about you and everyone wants to give opinions, good or bad," said the Hong Kong director, who uses only one name.

"You have to have a thick skin -- and you really have to concentrate on the positives," he said.

"As long as a film says something original and has meaning in their own language, do people care about the background of the investments and talent behind the camera?"

Van de Velde also had the gloss taken off his good news when his drama "The Silent Army" was put forward by Holland Film for the Oscars at the start of the month.

The film -- shot in Uganda and concentrating on the recruitment of child-soldiers by a fictional warlord -- was a box-office success in his home country.

But a group of fellow Dutch producers -- claiming the film used too much English -- threatened legal action in a vain bid to prevent the Oscar submission by Holland Film.

"It was not the best of ways to celebrate their decision, I'll admit," says van de Velde.

"Attention can be good and it can be bad. You have to be prepared for what will follow because suddenly everybody will want a piece of you."

While van de Velde calls it a "supreme honor" to be even mentioned for the Oscars, he cites the cautionary example of fellow Dutch filmmaker Mike van Diem.

"Mike had been a student of mine and his film 'Character' was put forward by Holland for the 1997 Oscars," he says.

"That brought him attention but then everything in his life changed when the film actually won the award. All the glory changed everything for him.

"And the sad thing is that after all those accolades, he has never made another film again."