The Shanghai International Film Festival's Golden Goblet Award Asian Newcomer unit has been established for 20 years since 2004. It has always been committed to discovering new film directors from China and other Asian countries and regions, supporting new forces in Asian films, promoting exchanges and mutual learning of film culture among Asian countries and regions, and promoting the diverse vitality of Asian films.

The Shanghai International Film Festival has recently announced the list of shortlisted films for the Golden Goblet Award Asian Newcomer category. All 11 works are world premieres. Today we will introduce the details of these works:

3 Days, 3 Murders (2023, Masoud Amini Tirani)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Masoud Amini Tirani)

Highlights:

The murder scene reappeared

The second feature film directed by Masoud Amini Tirani, an Iranian director who was a photographer, tells the story of six actors who were asked to spend three days and three nights in a house where three murders occurred five years ago, and play the original residents and victims. As a feature film shot in the style of a pseudo-documentary, although there is no shocking fresh material, the director successfully rendered the weird atmosphere with the help of various unconventional performance techniques. The realistic interpretation of the psychological changes of the six actors from the initial peaceful coexistence to the final complete collapse when facing the camera is chilling.

Bird of a Different Feather (2024, Manohara K)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Manohara K)

Best Actress Nomination

(Jayashri)

Best Screenplay Nomination

(Manohara K, Sonia S)

Best Cinematography Nominee

(Sanjay Chanappa)

Highlights:

The albino girl's path to reconciliation from self-pity to self-consistency

At the age of 13, Manohara K won the Indian National Film Award for Best Child Actor for his outstanding performance in the film "The Railway Boy". Now, Manohara, who is in his early twenties, is directing for the first time and bringing the award-winning autobiographical novel of female writer Sonia S to the screen, telling the growth journey of a girl with albinism. In the film, Sonia, who comes from a poor family, is discriminated against and hostile at school because of her albinism. Her father turns a deaf ear to her and her mother is willing but powerless, so she can only rely on herself. The director did not cast a sympathetic eye on Sonia, but presented her situation with a certain sense of distance, successfully shaping how a brave and optimistic girl accepts herself and makes albinism, a "shortcoming", a characteristic.

Dreaming of Mother and Home, 2024, Wang Xinrui

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Wang Xinrui)

Best Screenplay Nomination

(Song Yiye)

Best Cinematography Nominee

(Li Fannong)

Highlights:

Accompanying my dying mother on her last journey

Zhao Yu returns to her hometown, which is no longer familiar to her, to accompany her sick mother through the last journey of her life. In this place where she resolutely fled, Zhao Yu meets a man who has always cared for her mother silently and a group of friends who share the same interests as her mother. In the changing of seasons, Zhao Yu recalls her mother's youth and love, and faces her inner emotions again. This film is adapted from the novel of the same name by writer Zhao Yu. It is the first feature film of director Wang Xinrui. Song Xiaoying, the best actress of the Golden Rooster Award, and Liu Lu, a young actor who has been active on the stage for many years, play a pair of mother and daughter who are bound to each other. The film transforms the heart-wrenching separation process into a warm and intimate reunion, naturally showing the rebellion and persistence of two generations of mother and daughter.

Fishbone (2024, by Zhang Xuyu)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Zhang Xuyu)

Best Actress Nomination

(Huang Jingyi)

Best Screenplay Nomination

(Zhang Xuyu)

Best Cinematography Nominee

(Li Siwei)

Highlights:

Fish stall mother and daughter depend on each other for survival, love and hate

Li Qi and her mother depend on each other but their relationship is tense. After the college entrance examination, she helps her mother take care of the business at the fish stall. At her classmate Xiaowei's birthday party, Li Qi broke Xiaowei's mobile phone under the provocation of the other party. Faced with the crisis of compensation, Li Qi decided to solve it alone. The college entrance examination results came out, which were far from what her mother imagined. However, Li Qi was unwilling to follow the arrangement to repeat the year, which cast a shadow on the relationship between mother and daughter again... Director Zhang Xuyu's short films have been shortlisted for more than 20 domestic and international film festivals, and this first feature film is one of the top five winning projects of the "Green Plan". The director cleverly uses a variety of images to metaphorically metaphorize the psychology of the characters in the film, and the hidden pain of growing up is like a thorn in the throat. The veteran drama actor Wang Yinan and the new generation actor Huang Jingyi also accurately interpret the parent-child relationship of love and hate between mother and daughter with a tense interaction.

This Friday Funfair (Friday, Funfair, 2023, Zeng Zhi)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Zeng Zhi)

Highlights:

The sorrow and pain of middle-aged women

Nurse Song Qian faces her husband's sudden departure, her daughter Yuanyuan's upcoming surgery, and her mother Lao Zhang's fading memory. Her routine life for many years begins to become less leisurely... This film is the first feature film by the well-known advertising director Zeng Zhi. As a film about women's growth, the director does not intensify the opposition between men and women, but uses the mirror of men to present the survival dilemma of middle-aged women in the cracks. The heroine played by the powerful actor Yingze shows her inner tenacity under various blows, and finally overcomes herself and regains the right to speak in her own life.

Habitat (2024, Zhang Luoping)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Zhang Luoping)

Best Actress Nomination

(Wang Yuxin)

Best Cinematography Nominee

(Huang Shaohui)

Highlights:

Music teacher seeks truth about husband's death

Director Zhang Luoping, who was born as a professional photographer, was nominated for the Best Cinematography at the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival Asian Newcomer Award for his debut feature film "Sunny Days". This new work "The Tower of Life", which he wrote and directed himself, still adheres to his high standards for images, tones and composition, and was once again shortlisted for the Asian Newcomer Unit. The story tells that after a fire, the husband of music teacher Liang Yan died, but a series of strange things made her feel that her husband did not die in the fire. Who was burned to death? Liang Yan is determined to find the truth, but when everything comes to light, she has to face a more complicated situation. Through the dual perspectives of women and wives, the film gradually presents Liang Yan's re-examination and understanding of friendship, love, marriage and responsibility.

In the Name of Fire (2024, Abhilash Sharma)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Abhilash Sharma)

Best Actor Nomination

(Satya Ranjan)

Best Screenplay Nomination

(Abhilash Sharma, Shilpi Bhardwaj)

Best Cinematography Nominee

(Devendra Goratkar)

Highlights:

A sad song for the lower classes of India

In a remote village lived a poor couple whose child cried all night because he had no milk to drink. In order to feed his family, the husband went to the city to find a job, but suffered all kinds of exploitation and deception. The wife went out to find her husband, but was also branded a witch... In his second feature film, the self-taught Indian director Abhilash Sharma used black and white images to present the desperate life of the lower class people in India, but he did not stop at showing poverty. The fire at the end was the resistance and proof of the poor's existence when they were surrounded by fate and had no place to go.

Swallow (Longer Than a Day, 2023, Malika Mukhamejan)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Malika Muhamedjan)

Highlights:

A film directed by a female director for a female audience

Swallow lives with her husband and father-in-law on a horse farm on the Kazakh steppe. Swallow is very distant from everyone here, while her husband is obsessed with his first love, Aina. Everything changed with the arrival of a French photographer, Louis. Kazakh female director Marika Muhamedzhan was shortlisted for the Shanghai International Film Festival Golden Goblet Award Short Film Competition last year with her short film "Swallow". In this first feature film, she made Swallow the heroine and explored how women face loneliness. Swallow in the film is elegant and affectionate, and unwilling to be ordinary. When a heart-warming relationship appears, she goes from dependence to escape and then bravely walks towards her uncertain future, allowing the audience to see the tenacity and confidence of contemporary women.

The Absent (2024, Ludan)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Rudan)

Best Actress Nomination

(Wang Yi)

Best Actor Nomination

(Nadir Fatih)

Best Actor Nomination

(Refati Kalimov)

Highlights:

Produced by the late famous director Pema Tseden

The first work written and directed by Xinjiang female director Lu Dan, it tells the story of a Russian photographer who has been away from home for a long time, a Han girl who wanders around looking for her father, and a lonely Tatar accordionist who meet unexpectedly in a northern town in winter with a delicate approach. The father role in the work is missing, but it is the emotional bond of the three protagonists, and it also drives the development of the narrative in the dark. In the short time of getting along in the darkest moment of life, the three lonely souls slowly approach each other, presenting an intertwined growth arc, and finding their own path to redemption. The film was produced by the first director of the Tibetan New Wave Film, Wanma Caidan, who passed away last year. This shortlisted Shanghai International Film Festival is also the best commemoration of this young film master.

The Lost Daughter (2024, by Zang Lianrong/Xu Ruogu)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Zang Lianrong, Xu Ruogu)

Best Actress Nomination

(Duan Aojuan)

Highlights:

Mother searches for abandoned daughter to save son with leukemia

"White Clouds and Grey Dogs", a collaboration between directors Zang Lianrong and Xu Ruogu, was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Actor at the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival Asian Newcomer Awards. This time, the new film "Sui Sui Ping An" has won the second place and was shortlisted for this year's Asian Newcomer Unit. The film tells the story of teacher Li Mei who was forced to send her daughter to distant relatives due to many pressures such as her father-in-law's dissatisfaction and her natal family's interests after giving birth to her daughter Sui Sui. Later, she gave birth to her son Ping An, but was diagnosed with leukemia a few years later. In order to match her son's bone marrow transplant, Li Mei embarked on the road to find her daughter. When they met, Li Mei lied that she was her aunt because of her great guilt. The mother and daughter tested and used each other... The director used the story of looking for a daughter, which has the core of social news, to show many social problems such as preference for boys over girls, discrimination against women in the workplace, and bullying on campus. The new generation actor and former member of Rocket Girls 101 Duan Aojuan played an independent, brave and rebellious girl who was dazzling, and the powerful actor Liu Weiwei also performed the pain of a mother's choice vividly.

Countryside (Vicissitude, 2024, by Takuro Ijichi)

Best Picture Nominees

Best Director Nomination

(Takuro Ijichi)

Highlights:

Awakening society's attention to the mental health of young people

Yue, a boy who grew up in the nature of Kagoshima, began to pursue his baseball dream after entering high school. However, the pressure of competition, bullying around him, and the death of his friends made him constantly aware of the absurdity and injustice of life... The director of this film, Takuro Ijichi, graduated from the 2017 directing department of the Beijing Film Academy and is the first Japanese student in the department. Based on the real experiences of himself and his friends in their youth, he used a semi-documentary approach to record the fleeting and cruel moments of youth in his memories. From the perspective of adolescent children, the film deeply explores the impact of educational pressure, social competition and evaluativeism on mental health, calling for a re-examination of values and educational models. It was selected as a film selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan and will have the opportunity to become a teaching material and enter campuses.

(The above are sorted by the first letter of the English title of the film)

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.