China’s film community has made its way to the high hinterlands of Xining for the annual festival that champions the cause of the country’s independent voices while giving emerging talent a platform on which to announce themselves the world.
The FIRST International Film Festival runs from July 23, marking its 17th edition, and the first since the COVID pandemic curtailed in-person activities across the country for most of three years. Full flights in are expected, while seats on the trains that usually transport trekkers and pilgrims to a city that dates back to the days of the Silk Road are now at a premium for cinema fans making their annual sojourn from Beijing, and beyond.
For the uninitiated, the obvious comparison is Sundance, and not just because of Xining’s similarly mountain-capped surrounds and elevated heights of some 2,275 meters. Although there are obvious differences between the controls put on content in China compared to the United States, a generation of Chinese filmmakers have tested the market for their ideas at the FIFF as, like in Sundance every year, there’s a commitment to screening short films, many by students.
“I think FIFF is irreplaceable as a melting pot for new young filmmaking talent in China — to have new encounters, build relationships, exchange ideas about movies and get training,” is how festival founder Song Wen frames it.
This year there are 98 film screening in total across the festival’s eight-day run, and the line-up includes 27 features and 71 shorts. The festival opener is the latest animation from the acclaimed painter-turned-director Liu Jian — Art College 1994 looks a student life in the 90s and how China’s economic reforms changed society — and the first film since the crime-soaked Have a Nice Day was selected in the running for the Golden Bear in Berlin back in 2017. Among the films submitted from 16 countries and territories has been Malaysia’s undocumented immigrant drama Abang Adik, three times already an award-winner at international festivals, and again in the running for FIFF’s main prize.
The jury is being headed this year by Joan Chen with a special screening of Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic The Last Emperor, the film that launched her career globally, down for a special screening. Chen will be joined across the various juries — and no doubt down the red carpet — by the likes of Chinese A-listers Yao Chen, Nicolas Tse and Jackson Yee.
“I am excited to meet a new wave of Chinese filmmakers, to hear their fresh voices and see their perspectives,” says Chen. “I look forward to be buoyed by their passion and energy. Having lived and worked both in the East and West, I also hope to bring my own unique experiences to the discussions that will take place at the festival.”
FIFF has an impressive strike rate in terms of nurturing the talents of young filmmakers who have since gone on to bigger things. Among the directors who first made the trip to Xining as students, with short films and hopes in their satchels, have been Wen Muye, whose debut feature Dying to Survive went on to gross more than $431 million, and Shao Yihui, whose first feature B For Busy collected $36 million.
“FIRST is a festival which nurtures young talents, who are the future and the hope of Chinese cinema,” says Chen. “I’m interested in finding out, faced with an ever-shifting, chaotic and overwhelming future, how this generation conjures clarity, meaning, beauty and transcendence through the alchemy of filmmaking.”
Other films to have caught the eye include the closer, Trending Topic, a socially-savvy thriller looking at the hot topic in China of “grassroots” media platforms and the effect their stories can have on people when they go viral — and unchecked. It’s from director Xin Yukun, whose debut The Coffin in the Mountain won the best feature award at FIFF, and it stars one of China’s biggest stars in Zhou Dongyu, most recently seen by international audiences in Cannes thanks to her role in Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s thriller The Breaking Ice.
That was a Singapore-China co-production and Chen will no doubt be discussing the possibilities such collaborations can offer in his role in Xining as a mentor to young filmmakers. They can likely learn, also, from some seminars, such as The Future of 5-Minute Films: Writing the History of the Individual, which will (like the festival) tap into the short-short movement in China, which is supported by the world’s largest smartphone market.
There are more than one billion smartphone owners across the country so it’s little wonder so many want to use their devices to dabble with film — and FIFF’s short-short program/competition boasts 20 films, all lasting five minutes or less. There’s also a Filmmaking Forum to help generate ideas and a Rough Cut Workshop that aims to help budding filmmakers fine-tune their documentaries.
Adds Chen: “I hope to be delighted by distinct and authentic film language, evocative cinematic images and sounds. I also look forward to being challenged by new questions about the human condition.
Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News
Hollywood
