Sun Xianghui, curator of China Film Archive and vice president of Organizing Committee of 6th Beijing International Film Festival:
BJIFF makes remarkable progress within 6 years
Founded in 2011, Beijing International Film Festival is six years old now. Since 2012, entrusted by BJIFF Organizing Committee, China Film Archive is responsible for film invitation, film selection, film review, film arrangement, publicity and ticket office promotion in the film panorama section. Sun Xianghui, curator of China Film Archive and vice president of the 6th BJIFF Organizing Committee, uses "remarkable progress" to describe the change of BJIFF within these six years.
Tickets for many out-of-competition films sold out very soon
According to the statistics released by Gewara+Wepiao, inclusive ticketing platform for the 6th BJIFF, just 10 seconds after the selling at 12:00 on April 1, 621 tickets for A Tale of Love and Darkness was sold out. Then, tickets for films including Carol, The Last Emperor, Tokyo Story, Umimachi Diary, Blade Runner, A Space Odyssey were sold out very quickly. By 12:30, the number of tickets sold out has exceeded 6 million. For many hot films, it is difficult to get one ticket.
"In the beginning years, there were few spectators for some time slots of Beijing Film Panorama, and many spectators didn't know where to buy the tickets." Curator Sun Xianghui recalled, "I remember that the first session in 2011 was called Film Season. The total box office at that time was just several hundreds of thousands, and that of the following several years was around 1 million. However, last year, box office at China Film Archive Art Cinema reached 1.6 million, and tickets were difficult to get for many time slots. I'm in charge of the panorama. In this regard, BJIFF has made remarkable progress within six years. This shows that more and more people know about BJIFF, and they are willing to go to the cinemas to watch the best films in the world during the festival. "
It is common that it is difficult to get a ticket during the festival
According to Sun, during international film festivals, film panorama is always the part most close to the audience. Therefore, they attach great importance to the section.
"Film festival is a unique phenomenon. Take BJIFF for example, it lasts 10-15 days each year. During the festival, film enthusiasts from Beijing, neighboring provinces and cities, and even further places arrive in Beijing to watch first class films of the world, so there are always full speculators for some time slots within this period. China Film Archive Art Cinema can hold 600 spectators, and during the festival, tickets are often difficult to get. And it is a rare case during commercial cinema screening period."
Three characteristics of the arrangement for out-of-competition films
Since cooperation with of BJIFF Organizing Committee in 2012, Sun has a feeling that the work in film panorama has been greatly improved. "China Film Archive Art Cinema has always played an important role in film panorama of BJIFF. Now it is almost a flag cinema, and the quality of this year's Beijing Film Panorama will be higher than previous years."
Sun Xianghui explained, this year's Beijing Film Panorama section has three prominent features, "Firstly, it is diversified form. There are more than 1,000 screenings in 30 cinemas, which is quite different from that in commercial cinemas. These screenings are arranged according to different themes, allowing the audiences to understand the history of the development of film industry; secondly, through Beijing Film Panorama, we can see that BJIFF's international influence has been greatly improved. Secondly, we have arranged some special sections for some countries, including Denmark, the United Kingdom, Republic of Korea, and Japan. For the section of Korean film panorama, we selected the most watched documentary, My Love, Don't Cross That River, which was a dark horse for the box office of Republic of Korea last year. At the 6th BJIFF, we will announce that we will join hands with Korea-China Culture Garden to jointly establish a Chinese film theater in Myeong-dong for screening of Chinese films whole day, which represents the BJIFF' international influence. Thirdly, it has been increasing its historical significance. During the film festival, we will hold some activities in memory of some western filmmakers, and panorama for historical films of Chinese filmmakers. I think the film festival should bear an important mission: not only allowing the public to watch some splendid films revealing the development of modern film industry, but also representing the artistic images of world films including Chinese films combing light and shadow throughout the history.
In order to facilitate film fans to buy tickets, China Film Archive has made some improvement in terms of arrangement for film screening. Sun Xianghui said, "Firstly, we will make the layout of the cinemas more reasonable. Instead of merely being centered on one region or several bustling areas, this year's film panorama spreads itself all over the city of Beijing, with each region having cinemas participating film panorama. Secondly, we have improved the channels for booking tickets. We join hands with Gewara+Wepiao to promote ticket affairs of Beijing Film Panorama. With the advancement of publicity work, it is impossible for the audience to get informed of the screening of film panorama in advance.”
The film festival inherits the excellent traditional Chinese culture
Restored films are also an important part of film panorama.
Sun Xianghui said, "With the development of digital technology, all the countries pay much attention to restoration of films. In addition to regular screening of restored world excellent films, China Film Archive has always been promoting international screening of restored Chinese excellent films. For example, at the 4th BJIFF, we released Goddess, which was produced in 1934. It is a silent film, and made its debut of the restored version at the film festival. Yet, starting at Beijing International Film Festival, the film we included in the screening of Shanghai International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, London Film Festival, representing the excellent cultural tradition in the history of Chinese film industry. At this film festival, we will still select some restored films for panorama, including both domestic and foreign restored films. Some young people couldn’t have thought such excellent films had been shot in China or other countries years ago, especially, they couldn't have thought that such excellent films had been produced in China long ago. Some young viewers, having noticed some famous actors or actresses in restored classic films, will say, they never think these actors or actresses used to be so beautiful, because thescenes, or pictures of these classic films have been blurred before restoration."
The film festival is characteristic of "Chinese characteristics and Beijing style"
Speaking of expectation for BJIFF, Sun Xianghui said, "We hope BJIFF will do something more meaningful, not only to introduce world excellent films to China, but also promote domestic films to go global. BJIFF is characteristic of "Chinese characteristics, Beijing style". Among the domestic international films, it is the best one with Chinese characteristics and Beijing style. We hope, during BJIFF, in addition to films, filmmakers from the world can also experience Beijing-styled culture.