China’s FIRST International Film Festival Leaves Main Prize Vacant

Surprises are anticipated on the FIRST Worldwide Movie Competition, given its position as China’s main gathering for cutting-edge unbiased cinema.

However nobody noticed Sunday evening coming.

When it got here time to announce the pageant’s prime Greatest characteristic movie, the FIRST jury — led by Cannes Un Sure Regard winner Guan Hu (Black Canine) — left jaws dropping inside Xining’s Qinghai Grand Theater once they mentioned they’d determined in opposition to naming one in any respect.

“The obligation of movie pageant is to name for pioneering and cutting-edge works, to find those that have set foot on the shores of the long run and to honor creators who renew dogma by way of aesthetics and excavate new worlds by way of observe,” the jury assertion learn.

“Reviewing this 12 months’s filmmaking panorama, there may be ample range however no single excellent work; many have steadily superior, but there’s a lack of those that have raised new horizons. Due to this fact, the jury has determined that the glory for Greatest Function Movie will stay vacant this 12 months, with anticipation and perception sooner or later.”

Cue a number of squeals, some seat shuffling and side-eyes because the nine-day occasion got here to an in depth, however there was loads of applause, too. It was additionally in some way a fittingly enigmatic ending to a pageant that prides itself on introducing the most recent traits — and expertise — in Chinese language cinema.

So, the highlight as a substitute fell on the Grand Jury Prize and a movie the jury described as “sharply edged, with highly effective sensory impression” — Chen Yanbin’s Crusing Tune of June.

Set within the cultural melting pot that’s the mountainous southwestern Chinese language province of Guizhou, the movie mixes native myths with the arduous realities of an existence overshadowed by crime.

“The characters, storytelling, performances and enhancing work collectively to construct a city world brimming with want and energy,” the jury mentioned. “Its inherent inventive spirit is decisive, courageous and steadfast, representing the potent vitality of rising creators.”

The director mentioned he hoped his movie mirrored up to date society in his residence province.

Greatest director went to Baggio Jiang, at present nonetheless finding out Movie and Psychology at Stanford College, for his debut characteristic Shards.

The movie was impressed by a post-pandemic reunion and chronicles a dinner the place a household’s relationships slowly collapse.

Shards was described by the director as an “experimental characteristic” that took its narrative inspiration from the normal Chinese language porcelain reconstruction technique of fixing damaged shards collectively to make a brand new object.

The FIRST Competition additionally staged a novel First Body competitors that’s open to movies by or about Chinese language girls. This 12 months it was gained by the documentary Unstoppable, which focuses on three years within the lifetime of Chinese language world blended martial-arts star Zhang Weili, a massively well-liked athlete in China.

“I hope that individuals can now see Weili as an individual in addition to a fighter,” mentioned director Xu Huijing, who was joined on stage by the fighter on Saturday to select up the award.

Sunday evening’s star-studded awards ceremony noticed A-listers Chang Chen and Wu Kan-ren combine with Zhang Jingyi and different rising stars. It introduced the curtain down on the July 20-28 pageant, staged yearly within the central Chinese language metropolis of Xining, often called the gateway to the Tibetan Plateau.

See the total winners record under:

Greatest Narrative Function

Vacant

Grand Jury Prize

Crusing Tune of June, directed by Chen Yanbin 

Greatest Director

Baggio Jiang for Shards

Greatest Efficiency

Huang Jingyi for Fishbone

Greatest Inventive Originality

Jiang Geng for manufacturing design in The Small Village

Greatest Screenplay

Huo Xueying and Zhang Yudi for The Midsummer’s Voice

Spirit of Freedom

Fu Zongsheng for Chengzi_1

Greatest Documentary

I’m Gonna Discover You, directed by Meng Xiao

 Greatest Brief Movie

Extracurricular Exercise, directed by Dean Wei and Xu Yidan

Greatest Animated Brief

Sweet, directed by Ying Xun

Particular Mentions

The Dreamer within the Jungle, directed by Tu Hailun
Unstoppable, directed by Xu Huijing
Baozhda, directed by Keran Abukasimu