On June 26, the 29th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award judges meeting was held in Shanghai. Judges from the three categories of documentary, animation and TV series attended the meeting and communicated with media reporters.

A group photo of judges at the 29th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Awards Judges Meeting

In the Chinese TV series unit, which attracted the most attention from the audience, several judges talked about their impressions of the shortlisted works. In terms of the award criteria, all judges attached importance to the artistic appeal of the works.

Yan Jiangang, chairman of the TV drama jury of the 29th Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Awards, said that no matter the subject matter or type, as long as it is an excellent work created by an excellent team, the jury will value it equally. He said he was very pleased that this year's jury members are all senior practitioners and industry experts. "Everyone is highly consistent in their positions and opinions, aesthetics and values, and has reached a basic consensus on the judgment. Everyone may have different perspectives and evaluations on individual awards, but they can still reach a consensus based on full discussion, and ultimately decide who will win the award by the number of votes."

Actor and Chinese TV Dramas judge Hai Qing believes that this year's shortlisted works are more diverse and have "professional achievements."

Art director and Chinese TV drama unit judge Han Zhong believes that this year's shortlisted works all have strengths in visual presentation, presenting a multi-angle aesthetic display, and the display of oriental aesthetics has reached a new height.

In the documentary category, the Q&A focused on the challenges posed to documentaries in the Internet era. Xiao Han, a judge in this year's documentary category and director of "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City", talked about his thoughts on documentary creation in the era of short videos. "Perhaps today's audiences don't have enough patience to watch long films, which is indeed a challenge for us long documentary directors. But we should try to adjust our creative methods, embrace this era, and use our works to influence more people. This is our mission."

Wei Keran Channa, chairman of the documentary jury, believes that authenticity is the brand of documentaries. "The world is filled with countless information all the time, which makes people lost. Therefore, authenticity is even more precious and important. All of this prompts us to seek truth and filter out falsehood. This is the creative element of our documentaries, especially independent documentaries. In addition, various media make everything that is happening in the world close to us, perhaps happening in our living rooms, which requires us documentary filmmakers to digest and tell good stories up close."

The animation exchange session talked about passion. Frédéric Piech, a leading figure in the French animation industry and chairman of this year's animation jury, recalled his work experience. His first animation studio was in Shanghai, and he also worked in Hong Kong, China. In his long career, "the world is constantly changing, but people are still trying to understand and appreciate different cultures. We can have different opinions, but for the common passion, we still work together in mutual understanding."

Chen Liaoyu, chief director of "Chinese Legends" and judge of the animation category, also admitted the hard work of making animation. "A few months or a year is a long time to shoot a movie, but for an animation, three to five years is normal, and ten years is not surprising. Under this premise, if you don't have passion, you can't persist physically." He jokingly explained why "there are many couples in the animation industry", "Perhaps only couples can persist in the long road of animation and not separate." In his view, animation is one of the most capable forms of artistic expression to break down cultural and geographical barriers.