Representatives of the nominated films for the 5th Belt and Road Film Week pose for a photo at a press conference on June 9, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of the SIFF organizing committee
The 5th Belt and Road Film Week, a major part of the ongoing Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), is being held in Shanghai, bringing Chinese film lovers 20 wonderful films from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) member countries such as Chile, Indonesia, Italy and Israel.
Amid the 10th anniversary of the China-proposed BRI, the 2023 film week is a great event showing the continuous cooperation among BRI countries in the fields of film and culture, Chinese culture scholars told the Global Times.
By introducing acclaimed Chinese films abroad and bringing high-quality movies produced by BRI partners into China, filmmakers from BRI countries can learn from each other, scholars said.
Starting from 2018, the annual Belt and Road Film Week has become a very distinctive and important unit of SIFF, He Wenquan, SIFF's managing director, said in a speech at a press conference for the film week on Friday.
"We look forward to more excellent works, film talents and professional organizations from BRI countries… to collide and make beautiful sparks of friendship and art here," He said.
"The films also provide the general audience a window to further learn about the people and customs of various BRI countries."
The 2023 film week presents 20 films from 20 countries. Eight of them, including the Mexican film
Time Theorem, will compete for several awards at the event.
Time Theorem is a documentary directed by Andres Kaiser, who was inspired from hundreds of photos and videos shot by his grandparents as amateur photographers.
At Friday's press conference, Kaiser thanked the organizers for giving him the opportunity to join the event and expressed his wish to see more Mexican and Latin American films be screened in China in the future. "I always feel that the Belt and Road Film Week is a great opportunity to tighten bridges," Kaiser told the Global Times.
"I always feel that the Belt and Road Film Week is a great opportunity to tighten bridges," Kaiser told the Global Times.
It offers an opportunity to further cooperation between Mexico and China and have more Latin American films screened in the country, he said.
"That will enable cultural diversity and help bring global audiences closer," Kaiser noted.
Apart from the film week, SIFF also established the Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance (BRFFA) in 2018.
Today, the alliance's membership encompasses 55 film institutions and organizations from 48 BRI countries, such as Albania's Tirana International Film Festival, Austria's Österreichisches Filminstitut and Slovenia's Ljubljana International Film Festival, according to the SIFF organizing committee.
Simon Popek, artistic director of the Ljubljana International Film Festival, said at the press conference that coming to Shanghai and observing Chinese films has been a good experience for him and that he hopes to bring more Chinese movies back home.
"Coming from a country with a population of 2 million, coming to China has been a cultural shock for me," Popek said.
Popek said he appreciated BRFFA for gathering together so many film festival organizations from different countries and regions.
"Film festivals should communicate with each other and cooperate on multiple levels, to further promote some projects in the industry, such as education," he added.
During the past five years, 115 films have participated in SIFF's various programs with the support of BRFFA, with nearly 300 screenings conducted in and out of China.
In 2019,
CAPERNAUM, a Lebanese film introduced by SIFF, yielded an impressive box office of 376 million yuan ($52 million) in the Chinese mainland, and was nominated for the 91st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
Kicking off over the weekend, the film week is set to run until June 18, with several Belt and Road-themed events held in Shanghai, including a filmmaker workshop and a roundtable forum.
The 20 selected films are being screened for the public at cinemas in Shanghai and five other cities in the neighboring Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.
The 25th SIFF, held from June 9 to June 18, will screen some 450 films in and out of Shanghai, making it a precious carnival for Chinese moviegoers after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting in 1993, SIFF was recognized by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations as the only international non-specialized competitive film festival in China. It has been increasing its influence in the global film industry over its three decades of development.
