Film-makers in 133 countries and regions sent 4,632 films to this year’s Hainan Island International Film Festival, organisers said on 3 November. Last year’s edition drew 4,564 entries from 119 countries and regions. This year’s total is 68 higher, and the number of countries and regions rose by 14.
The eighth festival runs in Sanya from 6 to 12 December, Zhou Chunhua, director of the Hainan Provincial Information Office, told a press conference in Haikou. China Media Group, the national broadcaster, and the Hainan Provincial People’s Government are the joint organisers. The festival was first held in 2018.
Short films made up the bulk of the entries: 3,434, or about three in four. The remaining 824 are feature films and 374 feature-length documentaries. China, India, Spain, Russia and Brazil were the most active sources, and creators born in 1990 or later accounted for 57.7 per cent of participating creators, Zhou said. The youngest director was born in 2011, the oldest in 1945.
Who is judging
A jury of 13 film professionals, from countries including Sweden, Spain and the United States, will decide the Golden Coconut Awards (金椰奖), the festival’s competition for features, documentaries and short films. The chair is the Swedish director Ruben Östlund, whom Zhou described as a two-time winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and president of the main jury at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. His films include The Square and Triangle of Sadness.
The French actress Audrey Tautou, star of Amélie, is the festival’s image ambassador. Zhou said she would take part in the opening ceremony and other events, and give a masterclass.
What visitors can see
Organisers plan to show 100 to 120 Chinese and international films in up to 295 screenings, according to the festival’s announcement of 3 November. Li Yingting, head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Sanya Municipal Committee, said screenings would centre on Sanya and Haikou, with four to six outdoor sites, including Tianya Town and Luhuitou in Sanya; Zhou also named Dadonghai.
Country and regional programmes cover Egypt, Greece, Serbia, Thailand and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Egyptian strand marks 70 years of diplomatic relations between China and Egypt, and its film-makers have been invited to Hainan.
Families have a separate venue. Li said a sub-venue at the Changying fantasy theme park (海南长影奇幻乐园) would run classic-film and children’s programmes. Screenings will also continue after the closing on 12 December, on weekends in Sanya and Haikou, through to the end of the year.
Cheaper tickets
Hainan’s “Follow the Films to Travel” (跟着电影去旅游) campaign, launched on 7 August, is distributing RMB 5 million in film vouchers in phases, Li said. Its second phase runs from 1 November to 31 December, is run by the Hainan Provincial Film Bureau with UnionPay and covers every cinema in the province. Users of the Cloud QuickPass (云闪付) app located in Hainan get RMB 10 off tickets costing RMB 25 or more, RMB 15 off RMB 40 and RMB 25 off RMB 50 when they pay through the app, online or at a cinema box office, with no voucher to claim first.
Each user gets two discounts a day, four a month. Extra bank, UnionPay and platform coupons, claimed in the app, can lift the saving on a RMB 50 purchase to RMB 33. Visitors arriving in the province who claim the “air ticket plus” (机票+) consumption vouchers also receive film vouchers, Li said.
For the industry, the festival adds an equipment and technology expo with more than 30 exhibitors, a copyright trading programme and an upgraded AI film exhibition. That exhibition has four strands, including AI feature films and AI series, and nearly 50 AI works in industry screenings, according to the transcript.
Still to come
The competition shortlist and the main screening line-up have not been published, and the briefing gave no ticket prices or sale dates. Li said the final selection would be announced “soon”. Organisers said updates would appear on the festival website, http://www.hiiff.net, and its official WeChat account, HIIFF海南岛国际电影节, before the festival opens on 6 December.
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