Reporter Miao Chun
On April 18, the Yanqi Lake in Huairou, Beijing was filled with people and the event was unprecedented. The 14th Beijing International Film Festival (hereinafter referred to as the “Beijing Film Festival”) opens here. Hundreds of Chinese and foreign guests and the audience embarked on a splendid and colorful journey of light and shadow art.
Members of the “Tiantan Award” International Awards Committee appeared on the red carpet of the opening ceremony.
Seek deep resonance
This year’s Beijing Film Festival has attracted filmmakers from all over the world. Their successful films have common characteristics in the creative process: reaching the audience and finding deep emotional resonance.
At the Beijing Film Festival Creation Forum “High Quality and Diversity in Film Creation”, Nadine Labaki, screenwriter and director of the Lebanese film “What to Call Home” said that she has gone to the slums of Lebanon many times to understand the living conditions of children and their needs. As I think, “movies should express the voice of the people” and “creation cannot be based on imagination, it must be real.” This film once achieved a box office of 376 million yuan in China.
Dong Runnian spent 5 years to complete the movie “The Annual Party Can’t Stop!” 》Creation. “Every time we encounter a creative bottleneck, the only solution is to conduct interviews, research, and adjust the script after obtaining new cases.” He believes, “If you want to resonate with more audiences, you must talk about things that everyone really cares about. “
This year’s Beijing Film Festival brought together more than 250 excellent Chinese and foreign films, with more than 800 screenings in 27 theaters in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. At 12 noon on April 15, Maoyan Entertainment, the official exclusive ticketing platform of the Beijing Film Festival, will open online ticket sales. According to Feng Lu, project manager of Maoyan Entertainment Beijing Film Festival, the first movie ticket sold within 3 seconds of the ticket opening was “My Altay Episodes 1-3”, and the second ticket sold within 4 seconds of the ticket opening was “Volleyball” juvenile”. Two hours after the ticket opening, the top ten films with the highest number of tickets include “Mini’s House”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Broken Tomb”, etc. 3.6% of ticket buyers are Shanghai movie fans, who will travel more than 1,200 kilometers to attend the Beijing Film Festival.
Mr. Zhong, a senior movie fan, told reporters that he bought 10 movie tickets in total, many of which were movies in small languages that are rarely introduced to China. “The Chinese movie market is getting bigger and bigger, and the audience’s movie-watching needs are becoming more and more diverse. Thank you Beijing The success of the film festival”.
Films in the “Tribute and Restoration” section are often the most enthusiastic among movie fans to grab tickets. During the Beijing Film Festival, Douyin and Huoshan Engine held the premiere of the “Tribute·Restoration” unit film – the 4K restored version of “Plan A” and “The Pact” at the China Film Archive. These two films have been produced for more than 40 years. This time, they passed the “Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project” and went through multiple restoration links to finally achieve 4K effects. After watching “Plan A”, a middle-aged female viewer said that the first time she watched this movie was watching a video tape rented by her father, and the picture was not clear. Watching the 4K restored version this time, she felt that it was very visually impactful, which made up for the regrets she had when she was a teenager.
New high number of entries
The total number of films registered for this year’s Beijing Film Festival reached 4,273. Among them, the main competition unit “Tiantan Award” received a total of 1,509 feature films from 118 countries and regions. The number reached a new high, and 15 films were finally shortlisted. Chairman of the International Jury Committee for this year’s “Temple of Heaven Award” – Serbian director Emil Kusturica, who starred in the classic film “Walter Defends Sarajevo” loved by the Chinese people. He said that during the selection, the focus is to accurately capture the emotions conveyed by the film. “The values, humanity and artistry of the film are also important.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil. The Beijing Film Festival invited Brazil to be the guest country of this year’s film festival. It also held a Brazilian Film Week and screened 4 Brazilian films. According to reports, in 2023, there will be about 3,500 cinemas in Brazil, with a total annual box office of about US$440 million. Brazilian cinemas will release 728 movies throughout the year, about four of which will be Brazilian movies.
Cassius Rosa, deputy minister of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, said that the Chinese audio-visual market is of strategic significance to Brazil. “We hope to promote cultural exchanges between the two peoples, so that we can see Brazilian movies in Chinese cinemas and also in Brazil.” See Chinese movies in the cinema.”
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France and the China-France Cultural Tourism Year. This Beijing Film Festival also launched a “French Film Week”, screening 30 French films in many theaters in Beijing.
In recent years, domestic films such as “The Wandering Earth 2”, “Fengshen Part 1: Chaoge Fengyun”, “Chang’an 30,000 Miles” and “Hot and Spicy” have been popular overseas. This year’s Beijing Film Festival held the “International Living Room” for the first time, inviting domestic and foreign industry professionals to provide suggestions for Chinese films to further go abroad and integrate into the world market.
Li Weiwei, regional content director of Westec Media, a Malaysian and Cambodian company, believes that the international distribution potential of Chinese films is huge and recommends that Chinese films “fully consider the audience needs of the target market and their acceptance of localization” in overseas distribution.
Feng Wei, Vice President of the Asia Pacific Region of the Motion Picture Association of America and President of Greater China, suggested that Chinese films can move from the Chinese market to the North American market through mainstream distribution platforms or exhibitions, and are not limited to theatrical distribution. “Streaming media such as Netflix and Disney+ The user base is very large and deserves attention.”
Chinese and foreign guests discussed the topic at the Beijing Film Festival forum.
AI becomes the hottest topic
The hot words at this Beijing Film Festival are none other than AI (artificial intelligence) and AIGC (generative artificial intelligence). Currently, AIGC brings huge imagination and creativity to film and television creation, and also causes Chinese and foreign filmmakers to worry about creation and industry development.
Against this background, this year’s Beijing Film Festival opened the “AIGC Short Film Unit” for the first time, bringing together more than 430 AI works from around the world for screening and evaluation, and also held technology application lectures.
In the “Light and Shadow Future” film technology section of the Beijing Film Festival, AI has repeatedly become a core topic in 7 forums and 17 roundtable dialogues over 4 days, demonstrating the attention and thinking of the academic community and the industry.
At the important industry forum of the Beijing Film Festival, “Establishment and Destruction in the Changing Situation of the Film Industry,” top Chinese and foreign film experts tried to solve the challenges brought to the film industry by AI, micro-short dramas and short videos, especially AI.
Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival, believes that “AI is a very good technology, but it needs to be used under human guidance, because technology does not always bring us what we want, for example, it may not be able to Make it resonate with the audience.”
Director, screenwriter, producer, and chairman of the Beijing Film Association Huang Jianxin believes that technology is the support and driving force of movies, and all creativity is developed based on technology. “Establishing a good relationship with AI is beneficial to us, and we should embrace AI. “.
In the end, everyone reached a consensus: new technology and high technology will impact and reshape movies, but the audio-visual method of movies will not disappear. The key factor in the replacement of filmmakers is not the machine, but the exhaustion of the filmmakers’ own creative desire.
Promote film talent
At 9:00 a.m. on April 19, the Beijing Film Festival Beijing Market Project Entrepreneurship Final Review Roadshow began, including “Breathing Under the Ice”, “Here We Go”, “Donghua Football Team”, “The Adventures of Rabbit Guagua: The Lost Deer”, etc. Representatives of 21 projects took the stage one after another to make presentations on the status of the projects, goals of participating in venture capital, financing progress, etc. Five judges, represented by screenwriter Zhang Ji, commented one by one and gave their own opinions and suggestions.
In the audience, more than 200 representatives from film and television companies at home and abroad listened carefully and selected projects that they were interested in. Ms. Guo from a film and television company told reporters that since last year, she has paid attention to the “Young Director Support Program” of the Wave Film Week, the “Green Green” Program of the China Film Directors Association, the FIRST Venture Capital Conference and the Golden Rooster Film Venture Capital Conference, and found two She believes that projects that are both literary and commercial are currently being developed. The Beijing Film Festival’s venture capital investment is characterized by a large number of suspense and comedy projects, and she plans to have further communication with the creators of two or three of the projects.
In the 13 years since its establishment, the project venture capital unit has collected a total of 7,383 projects, incubating films such as “Spring River Water Warmth”, “Sherlock on the Plains” and “Rattle”, and has produced outstanding young filmmakers such as Gu Xiaogang, Xu Lei and Bai Zhiqiang. Hong Kong director Kwan Kam-peng, chairman of the final judging panel for venture capital projects at this year’s Beijing Film Festival, said: “‘Bring a script and leave with a movie’ is our core philosophy. The young people I come into contact with often bring me joy and satisfaction. “
In 2018, Gu Xiaogang’s first feature film “Spring River Plumbing” won the special award in the venture capital unit of the 8th Beijing Film Festival, and received financial support to complete the film. This year, he returned to the Beijing Film Festival as a judge of the “Focus on the Future” section and brought the opening film “The World of Grass and Trees”. Gu Xiaogang encouraged younger filmmakers that “completion is more important than perfection” and encouraged them to take the first step to turn their dreams into reality with the help of the Beijing Film Festival.
Movie fans participate in activities at the film and television cross-border market.
There are also people who are interested in using the Beijing Film Festival as a platform to issue a call for talents for kung fu movies.
Zhang Pimin, chairman of the China Film Foundation, believes that kung fu movies are one of the genres that allow domestic films to gain greater international influence and generate greater international box office revenue. Therefore, during this Beijing Film Festival, the China Film Foundation hosted the “Kung Fu Movies” The “Inheritance Plan: AKL Kung Fu Legend” launch event hopes to gather everyone’s efforts to open up talent exchange channels in the two fields of martial arts and film and television, discover, support, and cultivate a group of Kung Fu movie inheritors around the world, and help Chinese Kung Fu movies create greater glory.
During the Spring Festival that just passed, Beijing ranked first in the box office among domestic cities. As the national cultural center and the birthplace of Chinese films, Beijing has gathered a large number of film and television companies and talents and produced many excellent films. At the beginning of this year, Beijing launched “Several Measures to Promote the High-Quality Development of the Capital Film and Television Industry in the New Era”, which clearly proposed to further improve the film and television shooting service guarantee mechanism and increase services for film and television creation and production. During the Beijing Film Festival, Beijing’s film and television shooting service mechanism was officially launched. Huo Zhijing, director of the Beijing Film Bureau and vice chairman of the Beijing International Film Festival Organizing Committee, said that the Beijing Film Bureau will strive to be a strong backing for filmmakers’ creations and provide better services and support to everyone. “I believe that Chinese filmmakers will be able to work with Filmmakers from all over the world will work together to create more outstanding works that have both national style and international vision and express the common emotions of mankind.”
Create shared by all people
At night, the refreshing breeze comes from the first Langyuan Station in Chaoyang District. In the Sunken Square, an open-air movie screening attracted hundreds of spectators to sit or stand and watch “Keep You Safe” directed by and starring Dapeng. The film tells the story of a cemetery salesman who clears up online rumors about a deceased client. After its release last year, the film grossed about 700 million yuan at the box office.
During the first Beijing Film Festival, Dapeng was a reporter interviewing filmmakers on the red carpet. Now he has directed many films and served as the final judge for venture capital projects at this year’s Beijing Film Festival. “I am very happy that this film can be screened in the open air at the Beijing Film Festival and so many audiences like it. My original intention of loving movies has never changed.” Dapeng said during a live exchange with the audience after the film screening.
The open-air movie is one of the activities of the “M+ Stress Field” film and television cross-border market at this year’s Beijing Film Festival. This year’s Beijing Film Festival has nearly a hundred activities held at the First Langyuan Station. In addition to on-site industry activities such as theme forums, venture capital roadshows, investment exhibitions, etc., the film and television cross-border market is mainly held outdoors, bringing together more than 20 film and television companies. IP, more than 60 cultural and creative arts, and more than 20 catering and food exhibitors are committed to allowing everyone to share the fun of movies. During the three days, an interactive carnival between the public and the film festival was created, which was very lively and popular.
Movie fans and citizens can make wishes to the “AI Digital Jigong” here, taste the “Three Brigades” brand coffee, collect the seals of the “Three-Body” characters, buy the official peripherals of “The Lion”, create movie posters with Douban netizens, and follow CCTV6 on The account of the online platform is linked to the movie channel “Six Princesses”, and you can also see themed video flash mobs, meet the crew for filming, and check in with celebrities…
The relevant person in charge of Beijing Capital Langyuan Station said that this place has transformed from an old warehouse cluster in the past into a model of the integrated ecology of Beijing’s film and television industry development and new cultural consumption.The pictures accompanying this article are all provided by the organizer
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责编：张晓荣 ]
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