Beijing film festival jury includes two foreigners

Next month’s 11th Beijing International Film Festival, one of the biggest movie events in China, announced its jury panel for the Tiantan Award in Beijing on Thursday.

Aside from actress Gong Li, who was revealed as the jury president earlier this month, three of the other six jurors are from the Chinese mainland: actors Chen Kun and Zhang Songwen, and director Wuershan. The other three are director Leste Chen from Taiwan, Finnish director Renny Harlin and Lebanese auteur Nadine Labaki.

Fifteen films — three from China and 12 foreign titles — will contend for the Tiantan — Temple of Heaven — Award, the highest honor at the festival, which will run from Aug 14 to 21.

The Chinese entries are All About My Mother, Beyond the Skies, a war film set in 1937, and Before Next Spring.

The international contenders, which will all be shown during the festival, include Danish auteur Bille August’s The Pact,

Japanese director Izuru Narushima’s A Morning of Farewell and Russian director Andrey Zaytsev’s A Siege Diary.

For the first time in the festival’s history, its exhibition section — which will screen around 250 films from home and abroad — will not only be held in Beijing, but also expand to some cinemas in the neighboring cities of Tianjin and Zhangjiakou.

Highlights of the festival include the screening of classic movies by masters such as British comedian Charlie Chaplin and Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and a special exhibition of 15 domestic movies to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

Yu Junsheng, deputy chairman of the festival’s organizing committee, said the festival has accumulated international influence over the past 10 years, adding that the organizers wish to develop it into a “wind vane” for the global film industry.

The festival will continue to blend online activities with in-person events as a regular COVID-19 control practice, and boost its market section to build it into an appealing international platform for the trading of Chinese and foreign movies, Yu said.