Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 18th Title: Two Jiazi’s cheers! More than 300 films of the Beijing Film Festival create a feast of light and shadow
Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Shujun
A feast of light and shadow came as promised.
On the evening of the 18th, the 15th Beijing International Film Festival kicked off on the banks of Yanqi Lake. In 9 days, more than 300 film screenings, the “Tao of Heaven Award” awards, the Beijing market, the 32nd College Student Film Festival, the Film Carnival and other hundreds of events have created a feast of light and shadow across history, present and future.
This is a grand event for the movie—
This year marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Chinese films and the 130th anniversary of the birth of world films. Time goes back, light and shadow leave traces.
“Beijing Screening” specially planned two major themes: “The Cheers of Two Jiazi: Chinese Film Special Exhibition” and “130 Years of Self-Portraits”, leading the audience to trace back to the century-long journey of the film.
In 1905, Ren Qingtai of Beijing Fengtai Photo Studio filmed the first Chinese film “Dingjun Mountain”. The Beijing Daguanlou, which premiered this film, became a witness to the development of Chinese films.
Today, the Dashalan Commercial Street, Qianmen, Beijing, is full of time-honored brands, is crowded with people, and the “Birthplace of Chinese Film” attracts pedestrians to stop. Retro chandeliers, big red lanterns, wooden tables and chairs… When you walk into the Grand View Tower Cinema, time seems to flow back.
During the film festival, 10 Peking Opera movies including “Dragon and Phoenix Come to Good Fortune”, “Farewell My Concubine”, and “Orphan of Zhao” will be screened at the Daguanlou Cinema.
From silence to sound, from black and white to color, from ordinary film technology to the era of digital film, film art has been constantly evolving in the long river of time.
From the Lumiere brothers screened the world’s first movie in Paris in 1895 to the popular “Nezha: The Devil Child’s Fighting the Sea” that showed the charm of Chinese mythology with shocking visual effects, the wonderful blend of technology and culture has been constantly interpreting new excitement.
The “Future of Light and Shadow” film technology unit of this year’s Beijing Film Festival is iteratively upgraded, focusing on the forefront of global film and television technology, and building a dialogue and co-creation platform for “academic + technology + film”.
The film festival also focuses on immersive images, displaying more than 40 works including “Line Maze”, “Invisible Friends”, and “Looking for Traces”, covering various technical forms such as VR, AR, MR, tri-fold screen, and circular screen, creating a more interactive and immersive artistic experience for the audience.
This is a conversation between the filmmakers—
The “Tao of Heaven Award” of this year’s Beijing Film Festival received registrations for 1,794 feature films from 103 countries and regions, and the proportion of videos registered abroad in China is close to 90%. 15 works including the Chinese film “Good” and the Swiss film “The Trial of Frida” were finally shortlisted.
During the Beijing Film Festival, Chinese and foreign filmmakers gathered together to share their cultural and creative experiences through film screenings, forum exchanges and other activities. Chinese director Jiang Wen, Jia Zhangke and French actor Isabel Yuper will hold a lecture in the film master class; “International Living Room” will invite representatives of internationally renowned film excerpts to Beijing to organize a series of activities such as watching movies and sharing sessions.
The high-quality development of Chinese films cannot be separated from the discovery and cultivation of outstanding young film talents. Through units such as “Project Venture Capital”, the Beijing Film Festival has built a platform for young filmmakers to provide financial and resource support for more young filmmakers. This year, the Beijing Film Festival has set up the “The Most Expected Youth Director’s Works of the Year” ceremony for the first time, and selected and promoted 8 new masterpieces to bring new strength to the industry.
In 2025, the Beijing Film Festival also established a new “Oasis” unit. “By displaying new works with great genre breakthrough awareness, we inspire creative exchanges between filmmakers at home and abroad, and allow film creators to absorb nutrients from it.” said Sha Dan, a program planner of the China Film Archives.
This is a festival for fans—
The “Beijing Screening” unit, which has attracted much attention from movie fans, selected more than 300 excellent films from all over the world this year, and about 900 screenings were performed in more than 30 core commercial theaters, art theaters and theaters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Shortly after the ticket was issued at noon on April 14, tickets for films such as “Red Rose and White Rose”, “Let the Bullets Fly”, and “Horse of Turin” were quickly sold out.
“Fight for speed! This year I successfully bought tickets for favorite films such as “Becoming Zeppelin”. “The “old friend” of the Beijing Film Festival and film enthusiast Shi Zhenwei arranges a “holiday” for himself to enjoy the charm of the movie every year. “I watched more than 20 movies at the Beijing Film Academy last year. I like to integrate a story and feel a different life in the cinema.”
Starting from the movie, we gather together because of the movie. During the Beijing Film Festival, the Beijing Film Festival will be launched with the theme of “Watching movies and loving life”. More than 30 shopping centers and more than 600 merchants in the city have connected movies, catering, and cultural tourism resources offline and online; 5 million yuan in movie viewing vouchers for benefiting the people, and multiple “tourism with movies” routes were launched; “Nezha: The Devil Child’s Fallen Sea” hand-painted poster exhibition of over 100 million yuan” appeared in the cultural and creative collection…
“My name is movie. I am only 130 years old this year and I am still growing up. Thank you for your love.” This year’s Beijing Film Festival’s theme short film sent a deep and timeless thank you letter to the audience. Looking back on the past century, light and shadow freeze countless beautiful moments; imagining a wonderful future, the screen will present more moving chapters.
[Editor in charge: Ma Rui]
