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Film gala approaches
A-list celebs to make red carpet walk at the opening of this year's SIFF
Zou Huilin
Shanghai_Star
page02 2006-6-15
The 9th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), the only A-list international film festival in China, will raise its curtain on June 17.
However, the dazzling line-up of superstars has already attracted much attention from viewers at home and abroad.
Insiders hold that compared with the previous film festivals, this year's will welcome more international superstars, especially gorgeous actresses.
Word has it that the famous beauties attending red-carpet ceremonies will include French belle Catherine Deneuve, American actress Sigourney Weaver, British actress Natasha Richardson - lead actress of the opening ceremony film "The White Countess" -Chinese actresses Zhao Wei, Sun Li and Chen Hao, runner-up of Supergirls 2005 Zhou Bichang, Hong Kong-based star Ada Choi (Cai Shaofen), Gigi Lai (Li Zi) and talented actress-and-director Xu Jinglei.
Besides these charming female stars, actors such as Edward Norton, Jang Dong Gun, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes who stars in "The White Countess" will also be present.
The expected line-up of fifth-generation directors include: Feng Xiaogang leading the crew of "The Banquet"; Zhang Guoli with his crew of "The 601st Mobile Number"; and Hiroyuki Sanada together with director Chen Kaige and his wife Chen Hong who were part of the crew of the recently much-hyped film "The Promise."
Hong Kong-based superstar Andy Lau will also appear at the ceremonies, however, not as an actor but as the major investor of a newly-made black humour film named "The Craze for a Jade."
The red-carpet opening ceremony will be held at the Shanghai Concert Hall in People's Square.
Yu Baiming, the spokesman of the SIFF, revealed that the closing ceremony of the festival will probably also be held at the Shanghai Concert Hall.
For the international jury for the Jin Jue Grand Award of the festival, there are many eminent figures from the world film arena. Among them, three jurors out of nine have won an Academy Award.
Insiders say the line-up produces a jury of unprecedented strength for the festival when compared with past years.
French director Luc Besson will be president of the jury and Chinese director Feng Xiaogang vice-president.
In addition to the Jin Jue Award for the International Film Competition, the festival also embraces major events such as the International Film and TV Programme Trading Fair, International Film Screening and Jin Jue International Film Forum with Asian New Talent Prize Competition.
Tang Lijun, the deputy secretary-general of the SIFF and Shanghai TV Festival(STVF), said the number of the countries and regions sending their films to apply for the Jin Jue Award has reached a peak this year.
The organizing committee has received 768 films for the International Screening section from 52 countries and regions -- a rise of 38 per cent compared to last year.
Out of these films, some have won Oscar Awards or Cesar Awards while others are independent and experimental ones.
Tang added that the festival has appointed 19 cinemas to be the sites for the International Screening Section in order to let more people view the films.
"One of the new features for the International Screening Section is that the number of new films has increased quickly," Tang said. "Fourteen of the domestic films have just been finished this year and their production companies chose to screen them for the first time at our film festival."
She added that among all the foreign films, 25 will have their international premieres at the festival and many Asian premieres will occur at SIFF 2006 as well.
The retrospective screening of works by Luc Besson is another highlight. All nine of his films will be screened in Shanghai.
The organizing committee announced that the Asian New Talent Awards, just two years old, also attracted 81 films from 19 countries and regions, including 21 Chinese films.
This year, the jury of the "Asian New Talent Award Competition" has chosen 10 films from among the submissions and only two Chinese films were included, in order to promote the artistic values of the whole Asian region. On the night of June 24, the two awards, Best Film and Best Director of the Asian New Talent Award Competition, will be announced and the winners will share the 300,000-yuan (US$36,990) prize.
Those interested can log on to the official website of the 9th SIFF Organization Committee (http://9th.siff.com) for more information. |
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