The Golden Goblet Competition Unit of the Shanghai International Film Festival has attracted the attention of professionals all over the world every year, and the jury lineup of big names has often become a hot topic. The "Jury Works" unit selects the classic masterpieces or latest works of these well-known filmmakers, presenting their light and shadow charm to movie fans on the big screen. The second batch of jury works introduced to you today are from the following: Chairman of the Jury of the Golden Goblet Asian Newcomer Unit of the Golden Goblet Award Cao Baoping, a Chinese director; Jury of the Golden Goblet Asian Newcomer Unit of the Golden Goblet Award Japanese director Adachi Shin, Mexican director Lila Aviles, Chinese director Dapeng (Dong Chengpeng); Jury of the Golden Goblet Award Documentary Unit of the Syrian director Talal Delki; Jury of the Golden Goblet Award Animation Unit of the Chinese director Bu Sifan (Yang Zhigang).
Across the Furious Sea (2023, Cao Baoping)
Highlights:
The background of anger is hidden in the densest texture of the image
This film is adapted from Lao Huang's novel of the same name, telling the story of a father, Lao Jin, who is crazy about revenge after his daughter is killed. Finding the most documentary state, but adding strong narrative dramatic tension to it, is the neutral way that Cao Baoping has always practiced. Especially when his expression is mostly based on the retelling of literary adaptation, the subtle complexity carried by literature requires the creator to use abstract but mature aesthetics to care for it into a technical audio-visual language. From "The Glory of Fury" to "Wade Through the Sea of Fury", the literary description of the psychological struggle of crime has decreased, and the spectacular events such as the flying fish punishment have increased. In the end, the epiphany that really makes the film narrative transcend the literary text is that the two parallel story lines of the original Lao Jin and his daughter are arranged and edited into unconventional foreshadowing presets, and the more desperate reality is revealed: the daughter's greatest lack is not love, but family affection; she was not killed by her boyfriend, but committed suicide. It turns out that modern families are the least likely place for large-scale physical violence, but also the most invisible place for violence itself.
100 Yen Love (2014, Wu Zhengqing)
Highlights:
The award-winning original masterpiece of "Hot and Spicy"
This year's Spring Festival, Jia Ling's "Hot and Spicy" became the biggest winner, earning enough tears from the audience and collecting more than 3 billion box office. And its original version, the Japanese classic film "100 Yen Love", contributed greatly. The film was directed by the famous Japanese director Take Masaharu and written by Adachi Shin. It tells a touching story of an older unemployed young woman whose life has fallen to the bottom and changed through boxing. This ultra-low-budget short film, which was shot in just two weeks, was initially only shown in 4 art theaters, but then word of mouth quickly fermented, and the audience was like a tide. It soon expanded to a national scale to achieve a counterattack, and finally won dozens of honors including the eighth place in the annual top ten of the Junpo and the best film in the Japanese film unit of the Tokyo Film Festival. Adachi Shin also won the Japan Academy Award for Best Screenplay and the most important Kikushima Ryuzo Award for his solid script. In addition, the powerful actress Ando Sakura, who was already showing her edge at the time, conquered everyone with her explosive and extraordinary acting skills in the film, and won the double award of Junpo and Japan Academy Awards.
Tótem (2023, Lila Avilés)
Highlights:
When a birthday party turns into a farewell ceremony
Seven-year-old girl Sol comes to her grandfather's house, and the family prepares what may be the last birthday party for her seriously ill father. The second feature film by Mexican emerging female director Lila Aviles uses a child's perspective to keenly perceive the extreme inner world, and uses trivial warm daily life to show an optimistic philosophy of life and death. Based on personal experience, the director casts magic to make a sad situation generate inspiring power, and also presents the flow of emotions with her unique flexible style, experiencing the strong human touch in the bittersweet. The film was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Berlin International Film Festival, and won the Firebird Award in the World Unit of the Newcomer Film Competition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, as well as the three major awards of Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Music in the Tiantan Award Competition Unit of the Beijing International Film Festival.
Good luck and good fortune (The Reunions, 2020, Dapeng)
Highlights:
Dapeng has been planning for four years to make a comeback in the film industry
When Dapeng achieved commercial success that others could not match with his debut work alone, the creative anxiety facing him was no longer the box office pressure of "one film is better than another", but how to show self-consistency sincerely in front of the audience. Dapeng felt that the improvisation around the daily life of a family in Ji'an, his hometown, might be able to make an interesting art film. Set up a meta-film competition between Group A and Group B to break the construction division between fiction and record... These author film elements that Dapeng "calculated" from the beginning were caught off guard because of the sudden death of his grandmother. Dapeng decided to follow the will of heaven and not be afraid of the East Asian family crisis in front of the camera. He used sincere and even self-exposed subjective emotions to drive the skills to capture the torn images after a private family life change. From 2016 to 2020, under the dual entanglement of escape and introspection, the film finally completed post-editing and brought Dapeng an excellent reputation, and was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Golden Goblet Award at the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival.
Of Fathers and Sons (2017, Talal Derki)
Highlights:
Questioning the Devilish Nature of Terrorists
In the competition for the 91st Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, director Talal Delki's "The Making of Devil" lost to "Free Solo". However, in terms of theme and production difficulty, "The Making of Devil" can be said to be no less impressive, even breathtaking. After his first feature film "Return to Homs", Talal continued to focus his camera on his hometown Syria in "The Making of Devil". Talal admitted that he wanted to use this film to delve into the psychological state of people behind the Syrian war - how did a person become a terrorist and a demon on the battlefield? What made a simple individual so radical that he was willing to sacrifice his life according to the pagan heresy of the Islamic State terrorists? Before becoming a feature film director, Talal worked as an assistant director for many films and TV shows and a photographer for CNN. In this film, he maintained this questioning of the nature of war and human nature.
Dahufa (Dahufa, 2017, Bu Si Fan)
Highlights:
A unique masterpiece that stirs up domestic animation
As early as the heyday of flash animation, Bu Sifan had gained a large number of fans with his black-and-white short series "Black Bird". A number of animations he created later also featured ink-and-wash landscapes, violent fights, and a strange world. "The Great Guardian" can be said to be a culmination of his work. This wonderful work, which he wrote, directed, and rated (PG-13) by himself, was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The story of the film tells that the Great Guardian of Yiwei Kingdom came to a strange town in search of the missing prince. The residents here were silent and numb. Not long after the Great Guardian found the prince, the prince was kidnapped again. In the process of dealing with the crisis, the Great Guardian discovered the secret of the town. In this alienated space, there is a fearless intruder, a group of peanut people without self-awareness, and a fake god obsessed with power. The metaphors here are unspeakable but quite straightforward. Bu Sifan mixed bloody violence with humor and jokes, used his wild imagination to present human nature and criticize power, and stirred up domestic animation in a sharp and fierce way.
Tickets for this year's film festival will go on sale on the Tao Piaopiao platform at 12 noon on June 7.
Note: If the film list changes, please refer to the actual schedule.
