SIFF announces jury lineup

The 24th Shanghai International Film Festival, which will take place from June 11 to 20, announced its jury for the Golden Goblet Award on June 1.

Chinese director Huang Jianxin will be the president of the international jury in the main competition. The jury will consist of Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen, Chinese actors Deng Chao and Song Jia, French producer Natacha Devillers, and Italian film critic and producer Marco Muller.

One of the leading members of China’s fifth generation of film directors, Huang has been a film director, actor and producer since the 1980s. His latest creation 1921, which is a film about the founding of the Communist Party of China, was co-directed with Zheng Dasheng and is expected to premiere on July 1.

The film festival will launch its box office on Taopiaopiao, an online platform by the Alibaba group, on June 5. As part of pandemic containment measures, cinemas screening the festival’s films will make available only 75 percent of its seats.

Despite the impact of the ongoing pandemic around the world, SIFF has this year received 4,443 film applications from 113 countries and areas, the most in its history. Of the 400 showcase films, 73 will be making their world premiere at the SIFF.

One of the highlight events of the festival, the Belt and Road Film Week, received 1,136 film applications this year. Twenty of these outstanding productions will be screened during the festival, six of which will be shown for the first time in six cinemas outside Shanghai and in the Yangtze Delta region.

As this year marks the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the festival will present a special showcase of revolutionary-themed films that have been popular with Chinese audiences through the decades.