The 7th BJIFF: New Level，New Structure, New Landmark

　　It’s the 7th year of Beijing International Film Festival. Though Beijing International Film Festival has become a film feast attracting world filmmakers to participate in the events, it has been making innovations to provide filmmakers with an international, professional, sophisticated and marketable communication and cooperation platform. Under the aim of "Share the Resources, Win the Future," Beijing International Film Festival shows the culture of the city and builds the world culture communication brand.

　　At the 1st Beijing International Film Festival, it aimed to make Chinese films to stand out and be accepted by the world, to help the cultural development of Beijing, and lead the world film industry into innovation.

　　The Opening Ceremony of the 7th Beijing International Film Festival was about discovering films and the soul of Beijing. The theme of the Opening Ceremony was "Cross Time and Space" and it showed four aspects of innovation.

　　The first was the new view. The Opening Ceremony focused on "Master,Audience and Market" with new programs including "Respect for film masters," "Live stream connection between cinemas and audiences" and other parts, presenting an excellent and interesting show. The second was the .new atmosphere. All performances were with the emphasis on "Chinese impressions" and "Beijing features," which provided the audiences with visual and auditory scenes. The third was the new feelings.The Opening Ceremony reminded audiences of old films in the old times. Audiences felt warm when the Opening Ceremony showed respects to filmmakers,films and audiences themselves. The fourth was new media. Beijing International Film Festival invited popular TV stations, new media and other ways of live streaming to get audiences involved.

　　This year’s Beijing International Film Festival set up an International Film Technology Forum. Luan Guozhi, secretary of the party committee of Chinese Film Science and Technology Research Institute and the secretary- general of the Beijing International Film Festival committee, said that the forum allowed the Beijing International Film Festival to go further in the world film industry.

　　The forum themed "Technology Innovation Upgrades the Quality of Films." Domestic and international filmmakers and film experts were invited to deliver speeches on the digital film technology standard, development trend of technology, film industry structures and other topics related to film making.

　　It was also the first time Beijing International Film Festival set up the "Masterpiece" section in the Film Documentary unit. Famous filmmaker Jacques Perrin was invited as the honorary president, whose latest documentary film Les Saisons was selected the opening film of the Film Documentary unit. The new section also appealed the policy of The Belt and Road Initiatives. 223 documentary films who won Oscar Awards, Berlin International Film Festival Awards, Sundance Film Festival and IDFA.

　　Compared with last year, this year’ s co-produced documentary films were developed by amount and quality. The documentary section invited three international filmmakers from Germany, Australia and Japan, and four Chinese filmmakers to be the jury. 10 documentary films were aired in cinemas in Beijing, 6 of which were shown to the public for the first time in China.

　　As Beijing International Film Festival is growing to be a film brand in the world based under the support from the government and other parties, developing a systematic industry chain becomes important.

　　With the number of deals has been increasing, Beijing International Film Festival also has various types of projects. Now it is developing to a diversifi cation mode instead of simply focusing on film projects. This year, the deal made during the Beijing International Film Festival reached 17,458 million yuan, which is increased by 6.9% compared with last year. The projects included co-production films, film investment,film base construction, strategic cooperation, film funds and other new projects which covered all of the film industry.This is the fourth year that the deal of Beijing International Film Festival has reached over 10 billion yuan.

　　As Beijing International Film Festival is having great influence on the world film industry, exhibitions also builds a solid connections with the world. This year, 181 organizations from China and the world registered for the exhibition.Besides domestic main exhibitors, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau exhibitors such as Taiwan exhibition group, Hong Kong Baptist University, Italian Trade Agency, Israel, the US, Mongolia, Australia and other foreign exhibitors all joined the platform.

　　Catering to the demands of the exhibitors, the 7th Beijing International Film Festival rearranged the construction of the exhibition booths to add more space for the exhibitors. Press, associations of the industries, training company, law firm, film funds, cinemas, copyright sales and agents, advertising and marketing,interactive media and new media and different types of exhibitors. This year, the Beijing International Film Festival also invited organizations and companies from the world to develop new film technologies and explore new marketing campaigns in order to facilitate cooperation.

　　China's film investment is moving in the direction of diversification, which led to a number of new talent constantly emerging, and new forms of film, creative idea and dialogues appearing, becoming the focus of the film and the focus of public. In the background of multi-generation society, Chinese films are changing. There are more types of films and flexibilities, more challenges to traditional art, stories and characters. Filmmakers’ opinions and audiences’tastes are gradually becoming the same.

　　Project Pitches is an incubator founded by Beijing International Film Festival to help promote potential good films. Project Pitches has been founded for seven years. This year, it will focus on local films and introducing them to the world. The model is gradually approved by the industry in the world, in the meantime, it provides the young filmmakers with a platform to step into the oversea market. In the past years, many domestic films and Chinese filmmakers were introduced to the world and won several world film awards through the Project Pitches at Beijing International Film Festival.

　　To ensure the quality of the films,Project Pitches added an interview section. Director Yang Shupeng, scriptwriter Yuan Yuan and film producer Chen Lizhi were invited as the judges. 20 out of 36 films will be chosen, covering comedy,love story, mystery, science fiction and other types of films. The first 10 films will have a roadshow after training session.Director Li Yang, producer Tao Kun, famous insiders such as He Yunming and Qin Haiyan will be the trainers.

　　The boost of China’s film industry is based on the support of powerful platform of resources with high quality. The development needs research on the market, the prediction of the trend, the wisdom and thoughts to build the strategy and goal of industry development .Beijing International Film Festival takes the responsibility to lead to the new development of the world film industry.

　　Film is undoubtedly connected with the Beijing, the development of the Beijing film industry importantly support the Beijing cultural and creative industries.Beijing International Film Festival is making effort to allow audiences to have easier access to excellent films in every corner of the city.

Released on:April 23，2017