The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival will kick off on June 14, 2024 and end on June 23, lasting a total of 10 days. The Golden Goblet Ceremony and the Golden Goblet Awards Ceremony will be held at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on the evenings of June 15 and June 22 respectively. Since December 15, 2023, the Shanghai International Film Festival has launched a global call for entries. As of March 31, it has received more than 3,300 entries for competition and exhibition from 105 countries and regions on five continents. Among them, the number of films registered for the five categories of the Golden Goblet Awards main competition, Asian New Talent, documentary, animation, and short film exceeds 2,300. New works by famous directors and new works supervised by famous directors are advancing side by side. The Shanghai International Film Festival is expected to announce the list of nominees for this year’s Golden Goblet Awards in May. As China’s only international category A film festival, the Shanghai International Film Festival is an important window for the outside world to perceive the development signals of Chinese films. In 2023, the Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance initiated and established by the Shanghai International Film Festival was selected into the list of achievements of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. In 2024, the second golden decade of jointly building the Belt and Road has begun. The Shanghai International Film Festival will expand cooperation and exchanges, carefully select films recommended by member institutions of countries along the Belt and Road, and screen them in cinemas covering the Yangtze River Delta, starting a dialogue across national borders and screens. Adhering to the festival-running concept of ‘based in Asia, focusing on Chinese-language films, and supporting new talents’, the Shanghai International Film Festival has formed a ‘6+1’ step-by-step new talent cultivation system consisting of short videos, the short film unit of the Golden Goblet Awards, the Venture Capital Training Camp, film project venture capital, the Asian New Talent unit of the Golden Goblet Awards, the main competition unit of the Golden Goblet Awards, and the SIFF YOUNG x Shanghai Young Filmmakers Support Program. The short video unit with a creative video length of 5 minutes is in its fifth year this year. At present, more than 1,000 works have been collected. The number of overseas works registered shows a continuous upward trend, accounting for about one-third. During this film festival, the short video unit will specially plan a screening salon to jointly exhibit outstanding works that have won honors in previous sessions. Standing at a new starting point, it will also chase new waves. As one of the five competition units, the short film unit collects animated and live-action short films from all over the world. Among this year’s registered films, there are many new short film works by well-known directors. The SIFF short film unit of the international film exhibition will plan a short film collection, gathering short films that have been shortlisted or won awards in major film festivals as well as outstanding Chinese-language short films.
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 commonly seen 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 Filmmaker 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 industry development” in 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 can boost the development of the film industry this year. This year’s Shanghai International Film Festival will hold themed 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 displays 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 14th to 23rd, let’s meet in Shanghai, meet in cinemas, and share the beauty of the city brought by films.
