Persist in Cultural Self-confidence, Promote Development and Prosperity of Film Industry- Beijing International Film Festival Boosts Innovation and Growth of Film Industry

　　“To highlight the humanities, to influence the world.” China has a profound heritage of cultural self-confidence in its long and well-established cultural history. Film is not only “an ambassador from the film loader,” but also a carrier of the will and values of a nation. Beijing International Film Festival is designed as a platform for the interaction of artistic thought, concept of creation, and resources of the film sector around the globe. With unalterable cultural self-confidence, it guides the cultural resources of the world’s film industry, stresses creative transformation, and contributes to film innovation and development.

　　Hosted by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China and People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, Beijing International Film Festival has successfully ushered in its seventh year, when it communicates China’s outstanding culture in the popular film language of the world, displays the diversified culture, cultivates new talents at home and abroad, follows leading topics on film, and has grown into a significant cultural brand of the capital Beijing and China.

　　I. Be steadfast in cultural self-confidence, keep in mind the cultural origin, and boost the development of China’s film industry

　　China boasts its five thousand years of civilized history created and inherited by the Chinese people. It is the root and soul of the nation. Beijing International Film Festival is committed to extracting materials, getting inspiration, and absorbing nutrients from this immense cultural treasury. It combines the essence of traditional Chinese culture and ideological and artistic characteristics of the times, delivers it in film art, and spares no efforts in the promotion of films profound in cultural background and effective in nurturing human nature. With the lofty mission to reflect and lead the times, Beijing International Film Festival carries forward the spirit of China, unites its strengths, and serves the development of its film industry.

　　Promote the tradition, unite the strength. Beijing International Film Festival is committed to promoting the excellent traditional culture. With “Beauty in Variety, Harmony in Diversity” as its core concept, “Tiantan Award” adopts the modeling features and carving techniques of the maid pottery figurine from the Chinese Han Dynasty, makes a combination of China’s traditional long-sleeve dances and silhouette photographs of Tiantan (Temple of Heaven), and is an important symbol of the Festival’s main concept, namely, “Share the Screen, Shape the Future”. After seven years of development, this award of oriental glory has become a remarkable benchmark in the film industry of contemporary China and even the whole world, and one of those most promising and with the highest potentials. The Festival carries the essence of Chinese culture, highlights the elements of Chinese culture, and sets up “Beijing Ethnic Film Festival”, “Classic Peking Opera Film Section” and “Domestic Film Promotion Plan” to promote domestic films. It has awarded Dragon and Phoenix, Farewell to My Concubine, etc. of “Beijing Opera Film Project” Special Contribution Award and included them in centralized screening. Films that spread popular Chinese culture, such as Beijing Carmen, Path of The Soul, A Simple Goodbye, River, Tharlo, Dog Days, Find Me Guilty, Factory Boss, The Phantom of Yungang Grottoes, and Kids Of Wuzhumuqin Town are among the highly acclaimed.

　　Make the ancient serve the present and never fade. Cultural self-confidence is the source of national self-confidence, and historical and cultural traditions lead the way. The “Belt and Road” strategy makes the best of ancient China’s Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road. It is a specific embodiment of the great “Chinese Dream” and opens up a smoother channel for the cultural exchanges and friendly communications of nations along. This year, the Festival has set up “The Belt and Road” Out-of-Competition Section when films of India, Iran, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries along the “Belt and Road” are included in Beijing Film Panorama, bringing a feast of civilization to the world, also an opportunity for cultural inheritance and mutual appreciation, during the “Belt and Road” International Cooperation Summit.

　　Open your mind, enjoy Chinese characteristics. Cultural self-confidence lies in the appreciation of Chinese wisdom and the communication of Chinese experience.  Beijing International Film Festival opens its arms and welcomes film people and works from all regions and countries of the world. It is the inclusiveness of Chinese culture that makes the festival a tremendous one. Judges of the Beijing International Film Festival “Tiantan Award” in the past six years came from Russia, the United States, France, Italy, India, Ireland, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, etc. a total of 18 countries and regions. The active involvement of master filmmakers, such as James Cameron, Luc Besson, Alfonso Cuarón, Oliver Stone, John Woo, Keanu Reeves, Jean Jacques Arnold, Hark Tusi, and Zhang Yimou, as well as industry elites and representatives in all the events of the Festival over the years has fully embodied its inclusiveness.

　　II. Be steadfast in cultural self-confidence, attract the world, and build a global film industry platform

　　As President Xi Jinping has stated, to persist in cultural self-confidence, one has to absorb the spiritual strength from the Chinese traditional culture, take the initiative to promote the exchange of Chinese and foreign civilization, tell Chinese stories, spread Chinese voices, facilitate mutual understanding of Chinese and foreign people, and create a suitable context for the realization of the Chinese Dream. While the film is a form of art most popular worldwide, the film festival provides an essential platform for ideological exchange, wisdom collision, and talent stimulation. To spread the Chinese culture and facilitate the world’s understanding of China is a need of China in developing its own film industry and also the world in understanding China’s film industry. Beijing International Film Festival enables high-end and pragmatic commercial exchanges and transactions, and has grown into one of the film markets that are most active, appealing and magnificent worldwide. Friends of the film industry at home and abroad get together in Beijing International Film Festival to expand cooperation and strive for win-win situation, which effectively promotes the great development and prosperity of the film industry of China and elsewhere around the globe.

　　Attract foreign cultures, display cultural diversity. Beijing International Film Festival stresses the combination of Chinese and Western elements, learns from others, and makes appropriate reference to Western cultural symbols. Western classics such as lines from John Keats, English film dialogues, The Phantom of the Opera, Auld Lang Syne are introduced in the opening and closing ceremonies, and the combination of Chinese cultural elements and Western cultural symbols allows people with different cultural background to enjoy the profoundness of Chinese culture. The Festival features exhibition of multi-country, multi-subject, multi-style film culture on the same stage, a full embodiment of “diverse cultural exchanges”. Over the six years, 2,800 outstanding films from over 90 countries and regions have been actively involved in the selection of “Tiantan Award”, and the charm of the diverse film cultures attracted more than 8,000 films of over 100 countries to participate in Beijing Film Panorama.

　　Attract foreign cultures, promote mutual learning. President Xi Jinping stressed the need to learn from excellent literature and art created by people around the world, to make foreign things service China, and constantly blaze new trails in a pioneering spirit. Beijing International Film Festival employs high-end dialogue for the collision of ideas, the exchange of experience, and the determination of the trend. It leads hot topics and reflects the highest level of the world’s film art. The 7th Beijing International Film Festival Forum invites distinguished guests from the world’s film industry. “Sino-Foreign Film Co-production Forum” centers on the discussion of the market orientation and joint production of films, while “Focus Italy” Sino-Italian Film Cooperation Forum, Sino-Italian Film Co-production Round Table and the Italian film show series enable in-depth discussion of cooperation projects from macro to micro perspectives, and covering topics on Sino-Italian film co-production, Italian film co-production, tax rebate policies and procedures. World renowned director Emir Kusturica and Monica Bellucci will attend the event and the discussion.

　　Attract foreign cultures, move towards the global market. Beijing International Film Festival Film Market focuses on the development of the whole film industry chain, the construction of film elements, project pitches, and copyright trading platform. Over the past six years, more than a thousand film organizations have been attracted here to display, negotiate and trade, and the transaction amounts to RMB 57.495 billion. The exhibitors cover a variety of fields, including creation, production, distribution, law, brokerage, marketing, publicity, technology, just to name a few, bringing Chinese films with more Chinese culture features and competitiveness to the global market.

　　III. Be steadfast in cultural self-confidence, face the future, and contribute to film industry innovation and development

　　Facing the future, we keep in our mind the origin and absorb the foreign. The ultimate goal of traditional culture inheritance, promotion, and the absorption of the world’s advanced cultural achievements is to persist in cultural self-confidence and pursue cultural self-improvement. Beijing International Film Festival has always maintained the subjectivity of culture and a high degree of cultural consciousness for dialectic acceptance and rejection, and the contribution of Chinese experience and wisdom to the world.

　　Face the future, actively promote new talents, works and projects. Beijing International Film Festival makes it its duty to boost the rapid development of China and the world’s film industry, strives to play the role of industrial incubator, and promotes new talents, new works, and new projects. To this end, it organizes main framer media briefing, new film release conference, and premiere. The “Film Critics Recommendation Section” is prepared for the discovery, promotion and support of young filmmakers that possesses excellent market potential, as well as the selection of excellent films for honor screening, the discovery of outstanding new directors at home and abroad. The “Forward Future Section” captures the trend of the film and encourages the film originals. The Festival works with Cannes Film Festival and other institutions to establish “New Chinese Film Talents Fund Award” and “MPA Award” for new talents to participate in international exchanges. It also provides “Special Award” and “Best Business Potential Award” to encourage project pitches and the newcomers. The support to new talents and new projects is a finishing touch of Beijing International Film Festival to seize and win the future, and will guarantee strong vitality of the event in its sustainable development.

　　Face the future, adhere to the concept that film culture benefits the people. Beijing International Film Festival highlights the concept that film culture should benefit the people. It makes full use of the screening facilities of all the major film chains in Beijing, China Film Archive, Beijing Film Academy and some other universities to expand its coverage and implement its low-cost strategy to attract more viewers and fans. It elaborately designs several out-of-competition sections and selects 1,900 excellent films for over 4,000 activities in the city’s 30 cinemas and academic institutions that radiate to neighboring provinces and cities. Through the film culture feast, or the cultural benefaction to people, the Festival cultivates people’s viewing habits, enriches their cultural life, and further consolidates the mass base in the development of film industry, as well as its abilities to serve the public and the industry.

　　Face the future, boost film industry innovation and development. “Film Industry Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China”  formally enforced in March 2017 defines the legal rights and obligations of the film industry to ensure a good social and legal environment for its development and a strong consolidation of China’s confidence in its paths. Beijing International Film Festival has never ceased its efforts in the promotion of film production and innovation. It provides a platform for Chinese film people to learn, improve and perfect themselves, to get a more comprehensive understanding of the domestic and international film market, and to produce marketable cultural products. It launches “International Digital Cinema Technology Forum” for the first time this year to make full use of the film and television resources in Beijing, bring into full play the professional expertise of its partners, and enrich and enhance the professional level by leveraging the Internet, VR and other cutting-edge technologies. Beijing International Film Festival has always insisted its leading role in film art innovation and technological innovation. It encourages film reviews and business exchanges, conducts talent support programs, and actively creates an inspiring and innovative environment. Innovation drives the development and leads the future. Beijing International Film Festival will carry forward its innovative spirit and collaborates with its counterparts in and outside China for a better future of the film industry.