Film Fest Examines Home-grown MoviesThe eighth Beijing Film Festival for University Students is currently being held in about 20 universities and colleges in the Chinese capital.Initiated by the arts department of Beijing Normal University in 1993, this year's festival is being jointly organized by the department and eight other film-related institutions, including the State Film Bureau, the film channel of China Central Television (CCTV), China Film Archive, Beijing Television and Beijing Xinyinglian Film Company. "Our film festival puts more emphasis on the academic and artistic aspects of home-grown films, more than other film and TV festivals in China," said Zhou Xing, dean of the arts department of Beijing Normal University. This year, with growing interest in Chinese films, as well as deep concern about the sector's future development, a young audience and film scholars from art research institutes and universities are expected to examine about 30 newly made Chinese movies screened in university auditoriums during the three-week long festival, Zhou said. During the film festival, university students can also watch, on CCTV's film channel, re-runs of about eight well-received Chinese films which were directed by the fourth and fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers over the past two decades. As part of the festival, a film review writing competition will be carried out among university students in Beijing. The film festival has a special division for screening 19 digital video shows or short films which have been made by university students who are not film and TV majors, the organizers said. Movies up for awards range from the Oscar award winner "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," biographical features "Edgar Snow and Mao Zedong," "Heroic General Zheng Chenggong of the Ming Dynasty," "Erhu Master Liu Tianhua," "A Revolutionary Couple: Li Fuchun and Cai Chang," to animated movies "Five Weeks in a Hot Air Balloon," "Magic Lotus Lantern," "Marco Polo Goes back to Xiangdu," and vanguard films "Moon Eclipse" and "All the Way." A judging panel consisting of film directors and scholars from universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Chongqing, student representatives and officials from the State Film Bureau, has been formed to pick winners for more than 12 film categories. These include Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Visual Effects, Best Artistic Innovator, Best Child Actor/Actress and the Grand Jury Award. During the festival, which ends on May 10, several film seminars have been organized on topics such as the "Chinese film market," "Reforming China's film sector," "Comparing Chinese movies and Hollywood movies," "Globalization and Chinese film art," and "Digital trends in filmmaking and exhibitions." (www.chindaily.com.cn) |
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