What's new
Shanghai screen buzz
Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), the only A-category festival of its kind in China, kicks off its 10th session from June 16 to 24. Renowned director Chen Kaige leads the jury of seven established filmmakers and actors.
This year's highlights include a forum hosted by CEOs of 10 international film festivals, including in Venice and Berlin. They will discuss the responsibilities and functions of festivals in today's film industry with Asian directors.
A film-mart will be set up during the festival to promote China's shooting bases (purpose-built filming lots which feature architecture of different places and dynasties), as well as co-production trade talks with other countries.
Seventeen flicks, including three Chinese ones and one China-America co-production, will compete for eight regular awards. The final award winners will be announced at the closing ceremony on June 24.
Business wit
Wenzhou Merchants (Wenzhou Shangren), a film on the businessmen from Wenzhou, known as "China's Jews" for their super commercial abilities, will hit the big screen mid-June.
This group of business wits took the lead of opening new enterprises soon after the reform and opening up in the 1980s.
They were among the first Chinese to go to Europe, and over the decades they typically worked in clothing or leather goods manufacturing or restaurants. Their business has now extended not only to every corner of China, but also to most places in the world.
Playwright and producer Tian Runxi comes from North China's Shanxi Province, but he has many Wenzhou friends who did business in his hometown. Wenzhou merchants' diligence, intelligence and perseverance have long impressed Tian, who decided to write a play for the group in 2006. After finishing the draft, Tian invited his Wenzhou friends to read and give suggestions on how to make the characters more convincing.
During shooting many Wenzhou people volunteered to help. Some lent their cars to the crew and others provided their houses for the setting. Tian said he hoped the flick would also screen overseas, so that expatriate Wenzhou merchants could see a film on the people and life with which they are familiar.
Call of the wild
China's first International Festival of Films on Nature and Animals will kick off in Ya'an, Southwest China's Sichuan Province next month.
In this small town in 1869 French missionary Armand David sighted the giant panda and introduced the species to Europe.
The connection between Ya'an and France will continue during the festival. About 20 films have been sent by the Ornithological Film Festival, which has taken place in Mnigoute, France since 1985. The films will screen with Chinese-made films, which were selected from a major video contest initiated by the Ya'an government. Some of the Chinese films will be shown in Mnigoute in 2008.
Keeping it in the family
TV drama on family life has long been popular in China because it mirrors ordinary people's life. Today sees the launch of a new "family opera" on the relationship between a rural mother and her three sons and daughters-in-law living in the city.
The primetime series will be broadcast at 8:00 nightly on CCTV-1.
Liu Zengxin, screenplay writer of the new show, Nothing More Important than Family (Jiashi Ru Tian), said the family theme was popular because people can "feel" the joys and sorrows of the characters.
He said the show's modern setting distinguished it from others in the genre. The plot is not restricted to family affairs, but also deals with conflicts between rural and urban culture, the laid-off and migrant workers' life, and other hot social issues.
China Daily
(China Daily 05/29/2007 page18)
