The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival "Belt and Road" Film Week is themed "Road of Courage" and will lead the audience to explore the customs and culture of countries along the "Belt and Road" through 18 films, see another kind of life, and share the growth power of breaking through inner constraints.
Director and actor Dapeng (Dong Chengpeng), and actor and producer Yao Chen were invited to serve as promotion ambassadors for this year's "Belt and Road" Film Week. They will participate deeply in the "Belt and Road" Film Week activities, and use their respective industry influence to promote the dissemination of the latest and best films from countries along the "Belt and Road", and witness this grand event of film and cultural exchange and mutual learning with movie fans from all over the world.
This year, Dapeng (Dong Chengpeng), who won the Best Actor Award at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival Golden Goblet Award, served as the promotion ambassador of the "Belt and Road" Film Week, helping to promote films and events and promoting in-depth exchanges in film culture.
Since he officially entered the film industry in 2008, Dapeng has persisted in his film creation through multiple identities. He has participated in many impressive film works such as "The Eleventh", "The Beneficiary", "Unknown", "The Annual Meeting Cannot Stop!", and directed many popular films such as "The Pancake Man", "Sewing Machine Band", "Good Luck", "Keep You Safe", and "Warm".
In 2017, Dapeng was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor at the 11th Asian Film Awards for his role in I Am Not Madame Bovary. In 2018, he won the Most Popular Actor Award at the 25th Beijing University Student Film Festival for his role in Sewing Machine Band. In 2020, he was shortlisted for the Golden Goblet Award at the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival for his role in Good Luck. In 2023, he won the Best Actor Award at the Golden Goblet Award at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival for his role in The Eighth Suspect, and was nominated for the Best Actor at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2024.
In recent years, Dapeng, as an actor, screenwriter, producer and director, has been active in many international film and television cultural exchange activities. In 2023, he served as a feature film judge at the 5th Hainan International Film Festival. In 2024, he was invited to be the final judge of the Project Venture Capital Unit of the 14th Beijing International Film Festival and the judge of the Asian Newcomer Unit of the Golden Goblet Award of the 26th Shanghai International Film Festival. In April this year, the film "Warm" directed by him was screened during the BRICS Film Festival; in May, Dapeng and the main creators of the "Jiangyuan Lane" crew walked on the Cannes red carpet together to present the world premiere of the film.
Yao Chen has been engaged in acting for more than 20 years and has created vivid, brave and hardworking female characters in many Chinese films. She has starred in many hit dramas such as "Wulin Wai Zhuan", "Hidden", "All Is Well", and many highly acclaimed movies such as "Search", "Find You", and "Send Me to the Clouds". While constantly breaking through herself in the field of acting, she also served as a film producer, cooperating with young directors to produce works such as "Send Me to the Clouds", "Three Nobles Love Story", and "Umbilical Cord".
Yao Chen has won the Best Actress Award at the 24th Busan International Film Festival Asian Content Award, the "Actress of the Year" at the first Hainan Island International Film Festival, the "Golden Mulberry Tree Outstanding Achievement Award" at the Italian Far East Film Festival, and the "Film Role Model" at the 30th Singapore International Film Festival. She has also served as the image ambassador of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, the image ambassador of the Sanyi International Women's Film Festival, and a judge at film and television festivals such as the Taipei Film Festival, the First Youth Film Festival, the Golden Rooster Film Venture Capital Conference, the Beijing Film Festival Venture Capital, and the Shanghai Film Festival Venture Capital. Last year, she was also invited as a promoter to participate in the 2023 Cannes Film Festival China Youth Film Promotion Program Women's Forum, and discussed with outstanding female filmmakers from China and abroad the theme: How can female filmmakers find opportunities for themselves.
Active in front of the stage, and also deeply involved in the backstage. This year, the film "Umbilical Cord" produced by Yao Chen and Cao Yu and directed by Qiao Sixue was shortlisted for the "Asian Film Competition" of the 22nd Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh and won the Best Film and Best Actress awards. It tells oriental stories and shares the courage and warmth in life in the international film world. As the promotion ambassador of the "Belt and Road" Film Week, Yao Chen will use her professional accumulation and industry influence to attract more international attention to this "bridge of light and shadow" connecting China and foreign countries, and share her film journey with practitioners.
The two actors' spirit of daring to try and forge ahead fearlessly in front of the screen and in the film industry coincides with the theme of this year's "Belt and Road" Film Week, "The Road of Courage". Through in-depth participation and active promotion, they will promote film and cultural exchanges among multiple countries and explore the charm of film with fans from all over the world.
The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival "Belt and Road" Film Week screenings in Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Hefei are now available for ticketing on the designated ticketing platform Tao Piao Piao. Movie fans from all over the world are welcome to watch the movies nearby. The Film Week also prepared movie ticket stubs, exquisite cup sleeves and other limited-edition cultural and creative peripherals for movie fans, which can be collected at designated screening theaters.
The Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance was initiated by the Shanghai International Film Festival Organizing Committee and established in 2018. It now has 55 institutional members from 48 countries. Under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative, with the mutual recommendation of films and mutual visits of filmmakers as the core, we will jointly enhance the ability of film curation, promote mutual understanding among filmmakers, promote film cooperation projects, strengthen film and cultural exchanges among countries, establish a close information sharing mechanism, and explore the future development model of film festivals. Civilization is colorful because of exchanges, and civilization is enriched by mutual learning. Since the establishment of the Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance, the Shanghai International Film Festival has cooperated with the Propaganda Department of the Pudong New Area District Committee of Shanghai (District Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau) and the Shanghai International Tourism Resort Management Committee to hold the Belt and Road Film Week and create the Belt and Road Film Tour Mechanism, which has effectively promoted the two-way exchanges and mutual learning among filmmakers and film culture in countries along the route, and more effectively enhanced the cultural exchanges and people-to-people exchanges between countries along the route.
