The Final-round Project Pitching of the 12th BJIFF – Beijing Film Market will be taking place on August 16 at the Beijing Yanqi Lake International Conference Center. For the first time, the Project Pitches jury is composed of five members, who will conduct one-on-one meetings with the finalists on site and work together to select the awards for this year’s Project Pitches.

　　The five jury members make a debut

　　With Mr. Derek Yee, a famous screenwriter, director, and executive producer, as the president, the jury of the Project Pitches final-round roadshow consists of four other members, including Ms. Liang Lin, a famous executive producer and producer, Ms. Zhang Yuqi, a well-known actress, Mr. Ya Ning, President of iQIYI Motion Pictures, and Mr. Zhu Weijie, an established presenter and producer.

　　Derek Yee, born in Hong Kong, China on December 28, 1957, a famous screenwriter, director, and executive producer of Chinese language films, started his career playing a character in Lady Exterminator in 1977 before he turned into a director with the film The Lunatics completed in 1986. He won several awards as a director or screenwriter, such as the Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 13th Hong Kong Film Awards for C'est la vie, mon chéri in 1993, the Best Screenplay and Best Director at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards for One Night in Mong Kok in 2004, the Most Outstanding Director Award of the Hong Kong Film Directors’ Guild for Protégé in 2007, and the 7th “China Film Association Cup” for Top 10 Excellent Screenplay Award and the Best Director Award at the 13th China Changchun Film Festival for I Am Somebody in 2016.

　　Liang Lin, a then professor at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and PolyU Design, now serves as General Manager of Production and Project Development at Emperor Motion Pictures. As a producer, she has made several classic works, such as Two Thumbs Up, A Cool Fish, Caught in Time, Schemes in Antiques, Cliff Walkers, and Endgame.

　　Zhang Yuqi, a Chinese actress, played her first film role in CJ7 directed by Stephen Chow in 2006. She garnered a nomination for Best New Performer at the 28th Hong Kong Film Awards for All About Women in 2008, the Favorite Actress of Students’ Choice Award at the 20th Beijing College Student Film Festival for White Deer Plain and a winning award at the 14th Golden Phoenix Awards for White Deer Plain and Hsue-shen Tsien in 2013, a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 36th Hong Kong Film Awards for The Mermaid in 2017, and Best Supporting Actress at the 12th Asian Film Awards for the role Chunqin in the fantasy film Legend of the Demon Cat directed by Chen Kaige in 2018.

　　Ya Ning is Senior Vice President of iQIYI and President of iQIYI Motion Pictures. He holds a PhD degree in film studies. He joined iQIYI Motion Pictures as the president in June 2016. Among the films presented by him, Let Life Be Beautiful grabbed the 34th Golden Rooster Award for Best Children’s Film; Break through the Darkness made a strong comeback after hitting the screen during the Labor Day holiday in 2021 and became a dark horse with 405 million yuan at the box office; Man on the Edge soared all the way amid the pandemic outbreak in 2022, unleashing its huge business potential and grossing 166 million yuan at the box office. He takes diversified strategy in film production and strives to make quality films with Internet features and good commercial value.

　　Zhu Weijie, a film market expert of Chinese films and famous producer and presenter, now serves as the Chairman at Wishart Culture Media with abundant experience in film project development, investment, production, communication and release based on his unique and superior perspective of resource integration and smart and new recreation marketing as well as a profound insight of the demands of audience, especially the young generations. He is leading a team of talented filmmakers in film production, communication, release and marketing that made a total of over 30 billion yuan at the box office. His representative works include Too Cool to Kill, The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes, The Eight Hundred, Ash Is Purest White, Swimming out till the Sea Turns Blue, P Storm, G Storm, Dancing Green, and Fire on the Plain.

　　The final jury will hold a closed-door meeting after the project pitching on August 16 to discuss and select the awards, including the Special Award, Projects with Greatest Commercial Potential, Best Original Script Award, and Best Creativity Award in the pitching project category; the Most Investment Value Project Award and Team with Greatest Potential Award in the WIP project category; and the Most Market Focus Award selected by the Marketing Decision Group of senior industry experts.

　　The 18th Beijing International Sports Film Week is included in the BJIFF for the first time. An individual Sports Project Pitches section and a special-purpose support fund will be set up to encourage the creation and development of sports film projects. One out of the three shortlisted sports projects will receive the “Beijing International Sports Film Week—Special-purpose Support Fund for Sports Projects”.

　　Turn stories into films!

　　The countdown to the final-round project pitching of the 12th BJIFF—Beijing Film Market will starts on August 16!

　　Look forward to your attention!