The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival is set to commence on June 14, 2024, and will conclude on June 23, lasting a total of 10 days. The Golden Goblet Ceremony and the Golden Goblet Awards Ceremony will be held at Shanghai Grand Theatre on the evenings of June 15 and June 22, respectively. The festival initiated a global call for entries on December 15, 2023, and by March 31, it had received over 3300 entries from 105 countries and regions across five continents, competing and exhibiting in the festival. Among them, more than 2300 films registered for the five major categories of the Golden Goblet Awards, including the main competition, Asian New Talent, documentary, animation, and short film, with new works by renowned directors and debut works under the supervision of famous directors. The Shanghai International Film Festival is expected to announce the shortlist for this year’s Golden Goblet Awards in May. As the only Class A international film festival in China, the Shanghai International Film Festival serves as an important window for the world to perceive the development of Chinese cinema. In 2023, the ‘Belt and Road’ Film Festival Alliance, initiated by the Shanghai International Film Festival, was included in the成果清单 of the third ‘Belt and Road’ International Cooperation Summit Forum. In 2024, as the second golden decade of building the ‘Belt and Road’ begins, the Shanghai International Film Festival will expand cooperation and exchange, selecting films recommended by member institutions along the ‘Belt and Road’ to be screened in theaters across the Yangtze River Delta, initiating a dialogue that transcends borders and screens. Adhering to the festival concept of ‘Focusing on Asia, Paying Attention to Chinese, and Supporting New Talents’, the Shanghai International Film Festival has established a ‘6+1’ ladder-style new talent cultivation system, including short video, Golden Goblet Short Film Unit, Investment Training Camp, Film Project Investment, Golden Goblet Asian New Talent Unit, Golden Goblet Main Competition Unit, and SIFF YOUNG x Shanghai Young Filmmakers Support Program. The short video unit, with a creative image length of 5 minutes, is celebrating its fifth edition this year and has collected over 1000 works, with overseas entries showing a continuous upward trend, accounting for about one-third. During this year’s festival, the short video unit will feature a special screening salon, showcasing outstanding works that have received honors in previous editions, standing at a new starting point and pursuing new trends. As one of the five competition units, the short film unit solicits animated and live-action short films globally, and this year’s entries include new short films by well-known directors. The SIFF Short Film Unit, part of the international film screening, will curate a collection of short films, gathering short films that have been shortlisted or won awards at major film festivals, as well as outstanding Chinese-language short films. The Investment Training Camp, which was upgraded to a two-stage event in 2019, has been meticulously refined and this year marks its special ‘fifth’ edition.
This year, a total of 331 valid trainee applications were received, including 39 producers, 42 screenwriters, and 250 directors. The Film Project Venture Capital has been successfully held for 16 sessions. In international cooperation projects, in addition to the common foreign countries such as the United States, Japan, and France in previous years, projects from countries such as Germany, Iceland, and Italy have also emerged. The third SIFF YOUNG x Shanghai Young Filmmakers Support Program will continue to recommend outstanding young directors, producers, and screenwriters. The list of selected filmmakers will be announced during the film festival in June. The Shanghai International Film Festival Film Market, which has the ‘weather vane for the development of the film and television industry’, will discuss the development prospects of the film industry with film and television institutions and practitioners from home and abroad through exhibitions, market activities, and market screenings. The Golden Goblet Film Forum where domestic and foreign film masters gather continues to adhere to the creative sharing of film art. The theme forums and master classes will provide useful references for current research and practice, future development and innovation from multiple angles such as industrial pattern, film creation, technological frontier, and cultural exchanges. Under the wave of technology, technological innovation brings opportunities and challenges to the film industry. The ‘Science Fiction Film Week’ unit launched for the first time last year will focus on how the development of artificial intelligence promotes the development of the film industry this year. This year’s Shanghai International Film Festival will hold theme screenings and special forums around hot topics such as ‘Sora’, and plans to add activities such as science fiction master classes and special promotions for science fiction IPs. Of course, AI not only accelerates and upgrades the construction of the film and television industrial system but also transforms the daily lives of ordinary people. The digital film and television experience exhibition will be open to the public, bringing exhibitions and experiences of cutting-edge technological image applications. This year, the recruitment of screening cinemas for the Shanghai International Film Festival has received responses from 114 cinemas in the city. From June 14 to 23, let’s meet in Shanghai, meet in cinemas, and share the beauty of the city brought by movies. Opening hours: June 14 – June 23, every June.
26th Shanghai International Film Festival
The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival is set to commence on June 14, 2024, and will conclude[...]
