6th BJIFF successfully concludes Attracting global filmmakers, shining vigorous charm

　　A total contract signing volume of 16.33 billion yuan, with the participation of about 1,000,000 people in Beijing Film Panorama, Film Carnival and international bigshots in film forums.... The 6th Beijing International Film Festival has abundant activities, the famous Italian director Tornatore was surprised by its vitality, “Beijing International Film Festival represents the development trend of Chinese film industry. It has found its due position in the world. I love the infinite possibilities exposed during the growing process of Beijing International Film Festival, which even surpasses those of the time-honored film festivals.”

　　As a grand event for global filmmakers, the 6th Beijing International Film Festival was successfully held during April 16-23, and well received. This year’s film festival, closely centering on its functional positioning of promoting Sino-foreign cultural exchange, facilitating the development of the film industry and serving the capital’s cultural building, has been constantly improved in terms of subjectivity, diversification, internationalization, innovativeness and high end, marketization, professionalism and popularization, with film quality, panorama box office, guest reputation, forum professionalism, market trading and brand influential surpassing the previous sessions.

　　Cai Fuchao, vice director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, director general of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Anshun, deputy secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, mayor of Beijing, Tong Gang, deputy director general of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China, Li Wei, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, Wang Ning, deputy mayor of Beijing, and other leaders attended related activities of the film festival.

　　Through six years of accumulation, Beijing International Film Festival has been fresh with vigorous charm. It is this unignorable appeal that gathers together global filmmakers. This year’s film festival has attracted high attention from all walks of life, with over 300 Chinese and foreign film institutions from about 50 countries and regions, 15,000 domestic and overseas guests attending the film festival, with over 1,000 screenings of over 500 domestic and overseas fine film works, covering all the six districts of Beijing, achieving a total contract signing volume of 16.33 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 17.96%, hitting a new record; and the participation of 1,000,000 people who fully enjoyed the film feast.

　　Beijing International Film Festival has attracted high attention from media. China Central Television (CCTV), BTV and iQIYI gave live coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies. Xinhua News Agency, China News Service, China National Radio, Beijing People’s Broadcasting Corporation, People's Daily, Guangming Daily, China Press Publication Radio Film and Television Journal, Beijing Daily, Beijing Evening News, Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Times, The Beijing News, China Culture Daily, Music Weekly, sina, sohu, qianlong, Tencent, ifeng, Yahoo, NetEase, baidu, doubai and other media all covered the event as it developed. Among them, Beijing Youth Daily served for the publicity and promotion of this year's film festival, and the Official Daily it produces for the film festival has become a “hot reading”.

　　Compassion: Beijing International Film Festival tells good Chinese stories

　　With the keynote of “high quality, film feelings, Chinese spirit”, the opening ceremony of this year’s film festival highlighted cultural elements, echoed with the success in winning the bid to hold the 2022 Winter Olympics, shining the charm of Chinese culture. Based on classic poetry and traditional Chinese culture, the creative program called A Thousand Years Appears in a Moment showed the audience splendid Chinese life, Chinese spirit, and Chinese dreams through the combination of instruments, dances, martial arts, acrobatics, and film elements, bringing about poetic impact on Chinese and foreign guests and imperceptibly achieving international publicity of Chinese culture. Beijing Film Panorama held Beijing Ethnic Film Festival, Classic Peking Opera Film Section and other theme film panorama, highlighted Chinese cultural elements, initiated “Domestic Film Promotion Plan” to invite famous film star Gong Beibi to act as “Domestic Film Promotion Star”, vigorously promoting domestic films and fine Chinese culture.

　　This year’s film festival continues to devote itself to promoting Sino-foreign film cultural exchange. On one hand, it centers on facilitating the development of China’s film industry, telling Chinese stories well, publicizing Chinese spirit; on the other hand, it focuses on sharing international experience by widely inviting elites of global film industry and excellent films in the world to conduct exchanges and exhibition in Beijing, fully giving play to its role as a bridge and a platform. More than 3,000 people including internationally known film festival presidents, foreign envoys of various countries, filmmakers and production institutions, film markets, forum guest representatives and journalists at home and abroad were gathering at Yanqi Lake in the name of film.

　　Famous foreign actors and actress including American director and actress Natalie Portman, Best Actor of Cannes Film Festival Christoph Waltz, American basketball player Marbury who starred in My Other Home, Beijing, Japanese actor Takumi Saitoh and actress Mieko Harada, Korean actors Lee MinHo and Lee Jung-jae, and Korean actress Jessica Jung, domestic artistic stars including Yun-Fat Chow, Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Eason Chan, Wallace Chung, Yao Chen, Hao Lei, Tiffany Tang, and Liu Ye, 75 production teams including Cold War II, MBA Partners, Bounty Hunters, Tik Tok, For a Few Bullets, and New York New York, well-known domestic and overseas filmmakers, producers and directors including Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, British film producer Iain Smith, American director Anthony Russo, General Manager of China Film Co-production Corporation Miao Xiaotian,, and Bill Kong of EDKO Film Ltd., appeared on the red carpet. Serge Losec, president of Montreal International Film Festival, Deanna Gao, president of FESTIVAL DU CINEMA CHINOIS DE PARIS, He Zhiyun, president of New Zealand Chinese Film Festival, and Chung Hwandam, president of Gwangju International Film Festival also attended relevant activities of this year’s film festival.

　　Tiantan Award is increasingly expanding its international influence. Tiantan Award, hosted by BTV, has collected 433 films from 42 countries and regions for competition, including 230 foreign ones and 203 domestic ones. The quality of the films for competition has been improved greatly. Many of the films are global premieres or Asia premieres. The Organizing Committee of BTV Tiantan Award invited Brett Ratner, famous American director and producer well-known for The Revenant and Rush Hour, as the jury chairman and other jury members are from Germany, Romania, Japan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chinese mainland and Chinese Hong Kong. The powerful jury line-up makes the authoritativeness of this year’s Tiantan Award. All the jury members spoke highly of China. Yojiro Takita, jury member and famous Japanese director, said, “China has been steeped in the indigenous history and culture. Few countries can vie with it in this regard. And your motherland is home to myriad grand tales, which would inspire countless excellent filmmakers greatly. So, how can the Japanese like me not envy of you Chinese?”

　　Exchange: Global film masters gather in Beijing to facilitate the development of China’s film industry

　　Theme Forum of the 6th Beijing International Film Festival always adheres to a clear-cut stand: advocate telling good stories through Chinese films, improve the charm of Chinese culture on the screen in Chinese film creative space and the global context, analyse development trend of China’s and the world’s film industry from multiple dimensions, and focus on cutting-edge topics.

　　Sticking to a high-end orientation, this year’s BJIFF invited global heavyweight masters to exchange ideas in Beijing and offer advice for the development of China’s film industry. It is worth noticing that Industry Conversations of this year’s Film Market, based on hot issues of the industry in these years, selected different points of penetration, tapped the essence behind the phenomenon, and predicted the future development. Experts and guests in the industry at home and abroad were invited to share ideas on specific and up-to-date topics. Heavyweight guests invited to Sino-Foreign Film Co-production Forum, Chinese Film Merchandising Industry Summit, and Summit on the Beauty of Film included Giuseppe Tornatore, director of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Natalie Portman, leading role of Black Swan, Raman Hui, Chinese American director of Shrek, James Schamus, American producer, Iain Smith, British producer, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Film Group. Topics they discussed on are Experience Sharing of International Co-production, Market Development Trend of Film Derivatives, Evolution of Chinese Comedy Films under the Background of Internet, and so on.

　　As the topics for Industry Conversations of BJIFF are hot and up-to-date, there were no empty seats at the venue of the forums. Professionals in the film industry said that Industry Conversations of BJIFF Film Market acted as an observer and a weather vane in the industry, and provided a platform for film practitioners to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

　　Market: Build an “industry incubator” for the development of Chinese and foreign film industry

　　As the film festival is a great event for film practitioners, constantly improving professional level to serve film practitioners and film industry development is an important prop for sustainable development of the festival. This year's BJIFF, taking promotion of Chinese and world film industry as its mission, made efforts to bringing into play its role as industry incubator to fuel new film practitioners, new works, and new projects. Media conferences, new film release conferences, and premieres were organized to build a publicity platform for new film practitioners and new works. Film Critics’ Recommendation Section was set up to look for, introduce, and support excellent young people with market potential; Film Critics’ Recommendation Section was set up to select excellent films for screening, find new directors at home and abroad and support young filmmakers; Forward Future Section was set up to capture trends of film and encourage original films; through cooperating with Cannes Film Festival and Motion Picture Association of America, New Chinese Film Talents Fund Award and MPA Award were set up to support new filmmakers to participate in international communication; Special Award for Project Pitches and Best Business Potential were set up to encourage project pitches and support new filmmakers.

　　This year’s BJIFF centered on developing film market, deeply identifying demands on both the supply side and the demand side, promoting the connection of the upstream and downstream elements of film industry, and leading the trend of film industry development. Since the establishment of Project Pitches Section at the 2nd BJIFF, it has developed rapidly, and the collected projects at the 5th BJIFF achieved 455, with an increase of 100% from a year earlier. At the 6th BJIFF, the collected projects achieved 674, with an increase of 48% compared with last year. The quantity and speed have hit a record high. For these years, Project Pitches of BJIFF Film Market has incubated a few excellent films such as My Beloved Bodyguard, Mountain Cry, The Seventy-seven Days, and Till the End of World. My Beloved Bodyguard released on April 1 has achieved good result in box office.

　　Moreover, the film festival took the development of the whole film industry chain into consideration. Film Market provided participating enterprises with a variety of solutions including project road show, new film releases, strategy releases, forums and conversations, salons and cocktail party, to meet the needs for brand, business and project publicity from film institutions at home and abroad. Box office big data, film technology, and virtual reality technology were utilized to support and encourage the promotion of films reflecting new trends and technology of the industry.

　　Over the past five years, Film Market of BJIFF has developed rapidly, and attracted a total number of 2,900 film companies and institutions, and over 20,000 professionals, with transaction projects covering the whole film industry chain. During the 6th BJIFF, more than 200 enterprises and institutions from China, US, UK, Germany, South Korea, Finland, Israel and other countries and regions carried out exhibition, negotiations and trading, covering a variety of fields including big data of the box office market and film technology, which reflected recent dynamics in the world film market. Raman Hui, director of Monster Hunt couldn't help saying, "The film industry chain in Beijing is so great!"

　　Film Panorama: a film cultural feast for the mass

　　Film festival is an event for both filmmakers and film fans. Comparing with film festivals in the previous years, the 6th Beijing International Film Festival has more high-qualified films and wider coverage of audience. It aims to highlight the principle of benefiting the people, letting them enjoy the outcome of the development of film industry through participating in this film festival and helping them increase the spirit quality and happiness index, while adding some colors of film to the cultural deposits of Beijing, this ancient city. “This spring, do come to Beijing to watch the best film in the world.” serves as the goal of Beijing International Film Festival Film Panorama, and the positioning of Beijing International Film Festival set by all film fans.

　　This year’s film festival has taken full advantage of cinemas in the city, China Film Archive, Beijing Film Academy and projection facilities of some universities, covering all directions of Beijing with a larger area compared with last year. In addition, it has implemented low prize ticket policy, helping more audiences come to the cinema. Film Panorama has offered over 1000 film screenings in 25 commercial cinemas, academic institutions and five universities, covering six districts in Beijing and suburbs like Huairou and Daxing with more than one million audiences. That’s a huge increase of the quantity and quality of film, and a significant rising of the response and satisfaction of audiences compared with last year.

　　About 500 Chinese and foreign classic films carefully selected among 2,329 films from 105 countries and regions have been participated in this Film Panorama. Those include Oscar shortlisted and awarded films, films for Golden Palm of the Festival de Cannes, films for Jury Prize and Jury Grand Prize, films for Golden Bear of Berlin International Film Festival, and films for Grand Jury Prize of the Venice Film Festival, and hot commercial and artistic films of the world in recent two years. In order to offer better service to the audience, “Gewara+Wepiao” Beijing Film Panorama opened a week ahead and arranged pre-screen in theme cinemas and art cinemas from April 8 to April 15; the Film Panorama will close on April 23. Such a long time of duration guaranteed the audience a wonderful film feast.

　　This year’s Beijing International Film Festival has 20 well-designed Film Panorama Sections, which offers audience not only mainstream commercial blockbusters but also film of all genres. In order to help audience know more about the development of film history and increase their understanding about film culture, the Film Panorama has arranged film screening according to time and type. it has cooperated with foreign embassies and cultural institutions of Japan, Korea, Denmark, Italy and France to host foreign Film Week, demonstrating the charm of different cultures; important and memorial activities as 110th Anniversary of American Film Master Billy Wilder, 30th Anniversary of Soviet Director Andrei Tarkovsky’s Death, and Special Activity in Memory of Japanese Director Morita Yoshimitsu were held; it has had Restoration of Classics Section to screen those repaired excellent foreign films and domestic films which especially repaired by ourselves, so as to spread the excellent cultural traditions of Chinese film history. The Film Panorama has a more delicate division of level: it has had exhibitions of showing respect to the master, helping people know more about film history; debut section was set to recommend both domestic and foreign new films and help promoting those new filmmakers with potentials; nearly 30 sci-fi films has been imported from different counties in a sci-fi section, satisfying the needs of sci-fi fans and writers. In addition, it has set Film Week, microfilm section and documentary section for seven countries.

　　Organizing Committee has opened Film Panorama exclusive page on platforms like official website, cellphone APP, Weibo, and WeChat to interact with film fans and release related information. This was the first time for Organizing Committee to take market operation, namely cooperate with Gewara+Wepiao, use unified online ticket selling platform so as to help audience buy ticket and choose seat online. The Committee has also set “online film panorama” with iQIYI to screen dozens of good films, echoing with offline screening films so as to create an interactive film feast.

　　The Film Carnival has taken “One Main One Branch” mode with one main activity venue in Yanqi Lake and one branch venue in Yangsong Studio City. The activity is animation themed, representing “Fun·Childhood Fun·Return”; the animation music performance, animation Film Panorama, cartoon star interacting activity and COSPLAY show, which attracted thousands of citizens to participate in, has received affections from both parents and children.

　　Expectation: Beijing International Film Festival has become one of the most dynamic international film festivals

　　Since 1st Beijing International Film Festival was held in 2011, this event has come all the way with high-end beginning, leap-frog development and linking up with international arena. Its international level, professionalism, brand influence and public participation have increased dramatically, and till now, it has become one of the international film festivals which are the fastest in development speed, the most energetic and dynamic, acting a more and more important role in the process of building the national cultural center.

　　Under the firm leadership of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China and Municipal Government and Municipal Party Committee with a joint effort of all hosts, co-organizers and organizers, we have successfully overcome difficulties like tight schedule, heavy task, and difficult in coordination, fully implemented all kinds of works, not only guaranteeing the activities of film festival to be in order and a full success, but also achieving a rather bigger outcome compared with previous years.

　　In the future, against the background of fast development of Chinese film and the rich culture of Beijing, Beijing International Film Festival will present more vitality. The statistics show that in 2015, the domestic box office reached 44.07 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 47%, setting a record high. At the first quarter of 2016, Chinese film box office reached 14.49 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 51%. The rapid development of Chinese film industry, has, on one hand, raised higher requirements on the high-qualified film element resources matching platform, on the other hand, offered stronger support to China improving its influence on global film industry and remodeling the pattern of global film industry. Thus, Beijing should seize this opportunity to make Beijing International Film Festival bigger and stronger, and forge it into a world-class film festival which can lead the development of global film industry and create new pattern for world film culture, film art and the development of film industry.

　　Nowadays, Beijing International Film Festival has become an important business card of Beijing which is the national political center, cultural center, international contact center and scientific innovation center; Beijing International Film Festival shares a common functional localization with this city. Currently, the increased value of cultural innovative industry in Beijing occupies 13% of the local economy, second only to the first pillar industry, finance industry. As an important part of cultural industry, the development level of film industry in Beijing is at the forefront, ranking top on the list of watching times per capita, film quantity and excellent film quantity. Beijing has become the capital of film in the east for real. As for the future, the film festival should set its overall goal based on the “four centers” of Beijing, seize the opportunity of Beijing delegating non capital core functions, and focus on building Beijing International Film Festival the new cultural landmark of Beijing and comprehensively increasing its brand influence, so as to offer strong support to Beijing to be the national cultural center.

　　Beijing International Film Festival will continue to stick to the principle of “Share the Screen, Shape the Future”; follow the positioning to be international, professional, innovative, high end and marketization; tap its potentials and use its advantages; respect the art and follow the market; help new talents and serve the mass; contribute to building a major platform for domestic and foreign filmmakers, the a weather vane for film markets, an incubator for new talents and new works, a new landmark of city culture; promote the healthy, rapid and sustainable development of Chinese film industry; and serve the construction of the national cultural center in the capital.