The Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) has long been a hotly anticipated annual event for enthusiastic film fans. The response continued to be overwhelming for its 27th edition, which runs from June 13-22.
Tickets were snapped up when sales began on June 5. More than 600 screenings for 92 films were sold out within the first hour of going on sale, while the repeat screening for the yet-to-be-named best director winning film from the main competition of the Golden Goblet Awards sold out in just 26 seconds.
As of June 11, nearly 460,000 tickets had been sold, achieving a new sell-out record of 73%. More than 30% of the tickets were booked from outside Shanghai.
Shanghai, also known as the City of Film, is hailed as the birthplace of Chinese cinema and celebrates its 120th anniversary this year. Chen Guo, managing director of the Shanghai International Film and TV Events Centre, the organisation that runs SIFF, says that this year’s edition “will see a more vibrant and immersive festival atmosphere than ever before”.
An expanded screening network of 48 cinemas across Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta will present over 400 films from 71 countries and regions, with approximately 1,500 screenings scheduled. “Notably, 30% of the films will be shown in 4K resolution, significantly enhancing the overall viewing experience,” says Chen.
The Golden Goblet Awards is visibly growing in stature on the global stage, having received a record number of more than 2,800 entries across its five competition categories, of which more than 1,820 hold world premiere status. A diverse 49 titles have been curated as Golden Goblet nominees, including 12 each from the main competition and the Asian New Talent competition (most of which are world premieres), five each from the documentary and animation categories, and 15 from the short film category.
World premiere highlights from the main competition include actress-turned-director Miriam Heard’s After The Fog, about an eight-year-old girl growing up in the turbulent days of 1980s Chile; Kyrgyz auteur Aktan Arym Kubat’s latest film Black Red Yellow, which focuses on a weaver whose carpets mirror the fate of their owners; Chinese film noir master Cao Baoping’s One Wacky Summer, an absurd crime story with a strong Tianjin flavour; and Swiss director Nicolas Steiner’s black-and-white narrative feature debut You Believe In Angels, Mr. Drowak?, centred on a student hired as a writing coach for an unemployed loner.
Further main competition titles include the latest works by directors who are SIFF alumni: My Father’s Son by Qiu Sheng, whose sci-fi Song Of Life won best live-action short film at SIFF in 2021; On Summer Sand by Shinya Tamada, whose second feature The Freckled Girl Who Doesn’t Want to Fall In Love played at SIFF in 2023; and Cyclone by Flavia Castro, whose Venice’s Horizons title Unremember was selected for SIFF in 2019.
The Asian New Talent competition comprises eight first features including Lalith Rathnayake’s Riverstone from Sri Lanka and Ensar Altay’s Kanto from Turkey and four second features such as Pourya Kakavand’s The Daughter From Iran and Fang Liang’s Water Can Go Anywhere from China.
The best film, best director and jury grand prix winners from the main competition, along with best documentary and best animation winners will have repeat screenings on June 23, the day after the presentation of the Golden Goblet Awards.
“This year, we’ve made even more comprehensive preparations and look forward to sustaining the momentum,” says Chen. “We remain committed to building a more efficient and expansive platform for Chinese-language film production, and warmly welcome more film enthusiasts and local residents to join us in cinemas and be part of this cinematic gala, as we work together to elevate the festival to new heights.”
Apart from organising film screenings, SIFF is dedicated to cultivating new Chinese filmmaking talent. A string of industry programmes is designed to support rising directors, producers and screenwriter during the different stages of their project development and production. The programmes include the 4th SIFF YOUNG talent support initiative, SIFF Project, which introduces a genre film category this year, and the new SIFF ING, which focuses on AI generated content and vertical short videos.
For the first time, a joint International Film & TV Market will be launched, following the merger of SIFF Market and STVF Market. It will run from June 21-25, partially overlapping with SIFF and the Shanghai TV Festival (June 23-27).
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