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Stars align for Shanghai Film Fest
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-13 07:07
 The stars will come out tonight in Shanghai no matter the weather, as Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle, former Bond girl Halle Berry and Bridget Jones' naughty boss Hugh Grant take to the red carpet in front of the Grand Theater to launch the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. The world premier of Chinese director He Ping's drama Wheat will launch the festival at 8 pm at the Grand, host to the nine-day affair's opening and closing ceremonies. Wheat is a historical drama about the women left behind during China's Warring States Period (475-221 BC), and the lies told by returning soldiers to keep the horror of war at bay. Mainland actresses Fan Bingbing and Wang Ji play two heroines who help hold an ancient city together as the country is torn apart by fighting. Buoyed by a star-studded cast and heavily hyped, Wheat stands as one of the most highly anticipated films of the year. Aside from hundreds of screenings, which will be spread among 25 state-of-the-art cinemas in the city, lectures and seminars will be held at Shanghai Film Art Center on Xinhua Road, the de facto headquarters of the film festival. Most of the stars will come from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but this year more international celebrities will shower the city with their dazzling smiles and diamond-encrusted accessories to whip local paparazzi into a storm. Mainland directors Chen Kaige (who shot to international fame in 1993 with the release of Farewell My Concubine) and Feng Xiaogang (Assembly, 2007) have confirmed their attendance. Meanwhile, Hong Kong superstar Andy Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Memoirs of a Geisha's Zhang Ziyi, Nicholas Tse and Taiwanese singer-actor Jay Chou are also expected. The domestic film industry has shown no sign of a slowdown this year despite the global recession, enabling more films to be screened at this edition of the festival than in previous years. Some 284 films, selected from a total of 1,925 applicants, will be shown from June 13-21. Of these, roughly one-third, such as Cobalt Blue from Japan and Pacific Blood from Argentina, will have their world or Asian premiers. Unlike other film festivals such as Cannes, Sundance or the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea, all of the premiers are homegrown. Sixteen movies, including We Can Do That from Italian director Giulio Manfredonia, will compete for the prestigious Jin Jue Award, with Britain's Boyle at the head of an international jury of directors, producers and actors. According to organizer Chen Haimin, the festival is also a great opportunity to catch up on the latest box-office hits. "Audiences will be able to watch all the biggest movies from this year and last," he said. China sees less than 20 foreign movies enter its cinemas each year, due to a need to protect the domestic market, a trend that gives the festival special significance as an opportunity for local audiences to catch up with old classics on the silver screen. As such, one of the highlights this year is expected to be a retrospective of Britain's master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Ten of his movies will be screened, as well as six starring French actress Isabelle Huppert, who was president of the jury at Cannes in 2009, and several more by new Korean director Im Kwon-taek. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the French New Wave. Dozens of movies, including the signature works of Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, will be shown. All of the films will be screened with Chinese subtitles without any abridgment or dubbing. According to organizers, tickets for some of the most popular movies, such as North by Northwest and Cleo From 5 to 7, have already sold out. Other classics, such as We Can Do That and A Piece of Me, are down to the last few tickets. "As far as I know over 80 percent of the tickets for those really popular movies have gone," said Yang, a member of the organizing committee. She refused to disclose her full name. Box office hits like Wall-E, High School Musical 3 and Marley & Me are also selling like hot cakes. In the eyes of 27-year-old film buff Zhang Li, the festival is top of his summer to-do list. Last year he watched more than 20 films and spent in excess of 1,000 yuan (US$147). This year he is gunning to see 23. "Watching movies at the cinema is my lifelong passion," he said. "I've been looking forward to watching Wall-E for over a year. Now finally I can see it on the silver screen. "There's something special about the cinema, and especially this festival. There's no censorship, no awkward dubbing, the acoustics are awesome, and it's a shared experience. You can dive into the movie without any disruption from the outside world." Lu Hong (China Daily 06/13/2009 page1) |
