Jiang Wen leads 7-member jury panel for Beijing film festival

The 15th Beijing International Film Festival announced on Thursday that Jiang Wen, a renowned filmmaker known for blockbusters like Let the Bullets Fly, will serve as the jury president of the Tiantan Award, the annual event's top honor.

The other six jury members are actress Joan Chen, British director David Yates, actress Ni Ni, Finnish director Teemu Nikki, Swiss director-actor Vincent Perez, and Hong Kong art director Tim Yip.

According to the organizers, the Tiantan Award competition has received a total of 1,794 film submissions from 103 countries, marking a remarkable 18.9 percent increase from last year's 1,509 films.

The 15 shortlisted films competing for the 10 awards include three Chinese films: actress Ma Li's drama Better Me, Better You, the suspense tale Deep in the Mountains, and the crime film Trapped.

As one of the festival's highlights, nearly 300 outstanding Chinese and foreign films will be screened about 900 times across 33 cinemas in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Besides, Ne Zha 2, the most commercially successful Chinese film, which has stormed into the world's all-time box-office list as the fifth highest-grossing, will feature an exhibition of hand-drawn posters by its director, Yang Yu, better known as Jiaozi (Dumpling).

The festival also announced that Chen Sicheng, a veteran filmmaker who has made contributions to the industrialization of Chinese cinema, will serve as the president of the final jury for Project Pitches, a sector aimed at identifying and nurturing promising new creative forces for the domestic industry.

The festival will be held from April 18 to 26.