A spring downpour notwithstanding, the mood in northern Beijing's Huairou district was anything but dampened, as a sea of leading figures from the domestic and international film industries gathered to attend the 16th Beijing International Film Festival, which opened on Thursday.
The festival's highest honor, the Tiantan Award, received a total of 1,826 feature-length film submissions from 139 countries and regions, including China. At 1,607, international submissions accounted for 88 percent of the total, with both figures being new historic highs.
In a departure from tradition, the carpet leading to the opening ceremony venue this year was blue instead of red to symbolize the Grand Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which runs from Beijing in the north to Zhejiang province in the south.
Amid the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, the technology has emerged as a major theme at the festival. In 2024, a dedicated section for AI-generated content was introduced at the festival to showcase the latest advances in filmmaking, which was a first-of-its-kind initiative globally.
Speaking ahead of Thursday's opening ceremony, Stanley Tong, filmmaker and jury president for the AIGC Unit at this year's festival, said that AI tools are developing rapidly, with new applications emerging every two weeks or so. Some of the most advanced AI-generated visual effects can now be presented in 8K resolution, which is among the highest-definition formats available, he noted.
Tong said that he and his fellow jurors in the unit have reviewed dozens of short-listed entries from a pool of 3,000 submissions. "The technical differences are now barely distinguishable. At the core, it still comes down to characters, stories and performances," he said.
"AI can be used to make films, but ultimately the gripping details of a story depend on the vision of the director and screenwriter. Real human performances still offer greater richness and nuance," Tong added.
Scriptwriter Yu Baimei, also a juror for the AIGC Unit, noted that China produces hundreds of feature films annually, but when compared with its population of more than 1.4 billion, the number of stories brought to the screen seems limited. AI offers more people the opportunity to tell their own stories with greater ease, Yu said.
Actress Shu Qi, who is jury president for the Beijing Film Market, a section dedicated to supporting young talent, said she believes that a good film must have its own distinctive style — one that can draw audiences with great passion and genuine emotions.
Actor Yin Fang said that in today's age of information overload, when most people receive their daily dose of entertainment through smartphones, films must offer something special to lure audiences back into theaters.
Actress Zhou Dongyu, who serves as the festival's global promoter, said she feels honored to have grown alongside the event. It is not just an occasion for presenting awards, but also like an amusement park for cinephiles, who can watch both classics and modern films being screened, she added.
Actor Tan Jianci, the festival's promotional ambassador, noted that cinema has always been nourishment for the soul. "I hope more people will seek out great films and lose themselves in the magic of cinema," he said.
xufan@chinadaily.com.cn
