When tickets went on sale for the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF, June 12-21), around 250,000 tickets were snapped up in under 15 minutes.
The fastest selling tickets were for Markus Schleinzer’s Berlinale award-winner Rose, a 4K double bill of Dune: Part One and Dune: Two, Zhong Kaifeng’s Atlantic Rhapsody, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, and Sarah Goher’s Tribeca winning Happy Birthday.
Enthusiastic film lovers booked from all over China, reflecting how this year’s network of 52 cinemas includes 47 theatres covering all 16 districts of Shanghai as well as five cinemas in Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Hefei in the Yangtze River Delta region.
“SIFF is an annual festive occasion for movie fans. Throughout the event, the entire city is immersed in a celebratory atmosphere,” says Chen Guo, managing director of Shanghai International Film & TV Events Center, the organisation behind SIFF.
“This year’s screenings will be extended. A rerun of Golden Goblet award-winning films will take place after the closing ceremony, continuing the cinematic highlights for another full week.”
Some 420 local and international films will be presented at 1,600 screenings. The Golden Goblet Awards – the centrepiece of SIFF’s festival lineup – comprise 49 diverse titles across five categories, including 12 apiece from the main competition and Asian New Talent, five apiece from documentary and animation, and 15 live-action and animated short films.
Premiere festival
Every film in main competition is a world premieres, marking a first in the history of the Golden Goblet Awards, as is almost the entire Asian New Talent competition for first and second-time feature directors (except for the Asia premiere of Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples To Heaven, following its debut in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes).
Chen adds: “This year, premieres and diversity are the very clear trends. Some 84% of the competition titles are world premieres, and the number of countries and regions represented has increased from 28 last year to 33 this year.”
Yassine El Idrissi’s Halima marks the return of Moroccan cinema to the main competition for the first time in 27 years, while Zaid Abu Hamdan’s Boomah is the first Jordan-Saudi Arabia coproduction to compete in Asian New Talent.
Further highlights from the main competition include Ismail Basbeth’s My Own Last Supper, a rare portrayal of the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia; Night Of Blindness, the latest Turkey-Germany coproduction by Reis Celik, whose Night of Silence was a Berlinale’s Generation Crystal Bear winner; and Frankie Tam’s Secret In The Box, starring acclaimed Chinese actor Zhang Songwen, who previously starred in Venice competition title The Sun Rises On Us All.
The Golden Goblet Awards will be determined by 21 jury members from 16 countries and regions, with Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai serving as jury president for the main competition and Singapore filmmaker Anthony Chen chairing the Asian New Talent. Producer Dora Bouchoucha joins the panel as the first jury member from Tunisia.
Further festival highlights include Ken Loach: Lens As A Witness, China’s first retrospective for the UK auteur with a lineup of eights films and a special event on June 17, his birthday; Pathé: 130 Years Of Cinema, featuring works from the French studio from the silent age to post-2000s; Earth And Soul: Dostoevsky Variations On Screen, a curated programme of film adaptations of the notable Russian novelist; and Frame The Game, a brand new programme dedicated to sports films.
The festival will open with Keane Wong’s directing feature debut Afterpiece and close with Zhang Disha’s The Decisive Moment.
“SIFF has always been about international exchange between cultures,” says Chen. “This year, the International Film & TV Market will play a more prominent role as a trading and matchmaking hub.
“The Chinese-Language New Drama Promotion Hub will be launched for the first time while the new International Buyers’ Club will bring in dozens of international buyers to better connect Chinese rights holders with the global markets.”
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