On January 11, the 31st Shanghai Film Critics Awards ceremony was held at Victory Cinema, No. 408 Zhapu Road, Hongkou District. Film critics from the "City of Film" gave their answers to the best Chinese films in 2024.
The ten most "spiritual" films in the eyes of Shanghai film critics are: "Article 20", "I Was a Mountain", "Young Lion 2", "Good Things", "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru", "Only Green", "Wade Through the Angry Sea", "Broken Hell", "The Annual Meeting Cannot Stop!", and "Determination to Leave". The ten films cover a variety of themes and styles, and are rich and colorful.
This year's Shanghai Film Critics Awards ceremony was held at the historic Shengli Cinema (formerly Hongkou Grand Theater), just like this 31-year-old award, which carries a heavy weight. The seniors and newcomers from the film industry gathered together. This grand event is not only a review of the achievements of Chinese films in the past year, but also a prospect for the future construction of Shanghai into a film city and the construction of a strong film country in the country.
The chairman of the jury of this year's Shanghai Film Critics Awards is Ren Zhonglun, vice chairman of the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles and former vice chairman of the China Film Association. The jury members include Mao Jian, professor of East China Normal University, Li Jianqiang, professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tang Weijie, associate professor of Tongji University, Wan Chuanfa and Huang Wangli, professors of Shanghai Theatre Academy, Qi Qing, professor of Shanghai Normal University, Shen Jiayi, professor of East China Normal University, and Zhang Qi, screenwriter of Shanghai Film Group.
Liu Haibo, president of the Shanghai Film Critics Society, introduced the award review process: the society took the films released from August last year to date as an original list and gave it to more than 500 members for voting. Based on the number of votes, the top 30 were selected as the reference range for the final review. After the discussion, everyone voted anonymously to determine the ranking, and thus the top ten films of the year were selected.
Sun Haipeng, the director of Young Lion 2, who has won the Shanghai Film Critics Award for the second time, revealed that he saw the Waibaidu Bridge downstairs of the hotel he was staying in yesterday, and he ran out excitedly to take pictures, because this is a particularly important scene in Young Lion 2. Sun Haipeng, who has just presented the Shanghai life in his work, talked about his feelings about Shanghai, "It is very three-dimensional and diverse, with both traditional and modern characteristics, and there are many parts worth presenting in the movie." He said, "I am very happy that Shanghai has brought us such wonderful images in our work. If there is a suitable opportunity, I hope to create more stories related to Shanghai."
The film "Good Things", which is also set in Shanghai, was also shortlisted for the top ten films of the year. Producer Ye Ting recalled that both "Good Things" and "Love Mythology" started shooting around the spring equinox and premiered in Shanghai around the winter solstice. The crew spent two years in Shanghai during the Chinese New Year. "We have a deep connection with Shanghai, and we are lucky to be nurtured by this land as young filmmakers. Shanghai is a very warm, open and inclusive city. We hope to shoot more good movies in Shanghai in the future. We love Shanghai too."
Fang Li, the director of "The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru", talked about his insistence on making good movies. "All movies that are nutritious, thoughtful, expressive, and true are long-term movies. A purely commercial movie that makes money is trendy and caters to the crowd. It may have a high box office today, but it will be worthless tomorrow. But for long-term movies, it just means that the money will not return to your pocket. But for people who make movies, if the movie can survive for 50 or 100 years, which is longer than you, then what you earn is a sense of happiness, accomplishment, and honor. This cannot be bought with money."
In addition to praising good movies, the Shanghai Film Critics Awards have had special awards in recent years to praise and recognize newcomers. This year, the Newcomer Screenwriter of the Year Jiu Mei Chenglie won the award for "One and Four", and the Newcomer Director of the Year Liu Taifeng stood out for "Another Day Full of Hope"; the Newcomer Actor of the Year Wang Jiajun stood out for his outstanding performance in "The Eternal Wave"; the Newcomer Actress of the Year Zeng Mumei won the award for her outstanding performance in "Good Things". Interestingly, her award was accepted by her good friends and "enemies" in the movie, Maya and Andong, which also became another remote linkage between "Good Things" and "Love Mythology", and "Good Things" also won this year's Newcomer and New Work Award.
Liu Taifeng, the New Director of the Year, highly values the recognition from the film critics. "In today's rapidly developing information society, there are still so many independent scholars who can maintain their own positions and interpret the films of us creators from their own unique perspectives, cheering us on and encouraging us to discover more stories about ordinary people. I think this is a very fertile soil for the film industry."
"The Shanghai Film Critics Award is different from other film awards. It is selected by more than 500 film critics in Shanghai. They are well-informed and have a very solid theoretical foundation. Many of them are professors at film colleges and professional film critics. This makes this award very valuable." When accepting the award, director Jia Zhangke, who won the Filmmaker of the Year award, said that although he has won numerous awards, he still feels that this honor is unique.
In addition, this year's annual film theory and criticism contribution award was won by Li Zhenlin, dean of the Film School of Shanghai Theatre Academy, and Rao Shuguang, president of the Chinese Film Critics Society. The winning film of the annual Shanghai Film Award was "Eternal Waves", and the award was received by Zhou Yu, general manager and producer of Shangshi Pictures. The annual filmmaker award was won by the famous director Jia Zhangke for his outstanding achievements in the film field.
At this gathering of filmmakers, many participants talked about the challenges that Chinese films are currently facing. Rao Shuguang, president of the Chinese Film Critics Society, encouraged film critics to play a more active role in the industry. "Nowadays, many negative public opinions have a great impact on movies, and have unnecessarily consumed a lot of high-quality resources of Chinese films. Therefore, we must create positive, healthy and professional film reviews and "debate" with negative public opinions. We are not afraid of debates and we must rely on reasoning to attract more audiences. We have the light of film in our hearts, and we will move forward together."
The list of winners is as follows↓↓
