China’s FIRST International Film Festival (FIFF), held in the city of Xining, has carved a name for itself as a quintessential launch pad for young Chinese filmmakers.
Wen Muye (Dying To Survive), Zhang Dalei (The Summer Is Gone) and the late Hu Bo (An Elephant Sitting Still) are among the local directors who can trace their roots to FIRST, having premiered early works at the festival or participated in its First Mart financing market.
Jiang Xiaoxuan’s feature debut To Kill A Mongolian Horse, selected as an in-development project at FIFF industry platform FIRST Mart last year, is set to world premiere at Venice’s independent sidebar Giornate degli Autori.
Screen spoke to FIFF founder and head Song Wen about the spirit of the festival and future of Chinese independent and arthouse cinema.
FIFF is getting increasingly popular with filmmakers and the industry despite its faraway location at high altitude. How do you instil the festival spirit in them?
We welcome a strong lineup of guests every year and many of them have visited us multiple times. The festival has at its core a very young and dynamic pool of filmmakers and viewers. At the same time, industry partners come here to discover contemporary films by new creative forces and to learn about investment trends and audience tastes. Among this year’s industry guests are Zhang Miao from Beijing Splendid Culture & Entertainment, Zeng Jiyuan from Beijing Lian Rui Pictures, Zhang Chen and Li Fenghua from Mahua FunAge, and Li Wenwen from Shanghai Tingdong Film Industry and Feng Qing from Beijing Happy Film Industry.
We turn the festival into a nine-day cultural feast, including Xining’s Night, which offers live performances by local bands, a series of digital art projects supported by our partners like Vivo and BMW, and open-air screenings.
We make sure that all screening and event venues are within a walking distance of about 10 minutes between any two locations. The convenience will enable our guests to comfortably experience the diversity of the festival. The city of Xining itself is also enticing with its delicious food and beautiful scenery. It will leave a lasting memory for our guests.
The first five editions of FIFF were held in Beijing before it was relocated to Xining in 2011. How did Xining become the permanent city for the festival?
Before moving to Xining, I visited several internationally renowned festivals such as Locarno, Sundance and Rotterdam, which all have a strong cinephile culture, a youthful energy, and a close connection between the festival and the city’s natural and cultural landscapes.
Located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in northwest China, Xining shares similar vibes, from natural landscapes with snow-capped mountains, lakes and grasslands, to culture such as Thangka paintings, Tibetan carpets, shadow puppetry, and stilt walking.
FIFF’s main source of funding comes from corporate sponsors such as Chanel, Vivo, and BMW. Is there much revenue from ticket sales?
We always hope that FIFF is a social enterprise, using a business model to fulfil our social responsibility and provide fair opportunities to creators. We are fortunate to meet many partners who are willing to grow with us.
Vivo collaborates with us on First Super Short Film for the creation of five-minute videos shot with portable devices, which aims to discover the unknown creativity in people. With the support of Chanel, First Frame focuses on female-themed works and female creators, reflecting a very important contemporary trend.
Ticket revenue does not constitute a major portion of our income. In terms of screenings, we still place more emphasis on industry engagement and public enjoyment including free outdoor screenings for the public.
FIFF is bookended with two foreign films this year – French director Quentin Dupieux’s Cannes opener The Second Act and the 4K restoration of Wim Wender’s 1984 classic Paris, Texas – bringing back more international works since the pandemic. Still, the rest of the international selection is limited to short films only.
This year, we resume the Master Snapshot section, with four short films by Godard, Fassbinder, Wenders, and Akerman, to provide inspiration to young Chinese filmmakers through the debut works and student films of renowned filmmakers.
We also partner once again with French state film school La Femis, presenting four short films to Chinese audiences through the Academy Spirits section. In previous editions, we worked with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the American Film Institute for the international exchange of student short films.
Through Berlinale Spotlight, we continue our ongoing collaboration with Berlin Film Festival, which started in 2021, to showcase five works from their short film competition.
You are also a filmmaker, having directed The Enigma Of Arrival and upcoming spy thriller Dawn Rising. Did you experience similar challenges as the emerging Chinese filmmakers?
After I shot my directorial debut in 2016, I did distribution and productions such as Wrath Of Silence and All In All 4 You. These experiences enabled me to understand the difficulties many creators face and inspire me to build a more comprehensive nurturing system for FIFF that can complement traditional film education at film schools.
Many young directors do not have professional acting training and might have difficulty communicating with the actors when working on the script together. To address this issue, we have set up acting workshops in the First Mart and First Lab, inviting top actors such as Zhang Songwen, Hao Lei and Tang Wei to provide acting training for directors.
As an investor, I feel that when the production cost reaches a certain level like $2.75m (RMB20m), how to effectively utilise the resources becomes a very big challenge, including casting well-known actors. To help young filmmakers, we have expanded the scope of First Lab, setting up genre film laboratory, producer laboratory and screenwriter laboratory.
How is the market for Chinese indies in general? Is it still niche or is it becoming more mature with a broader audience base?
I think the current state of Chinese arthouse films is on track to maturity, somewhere between the two scenarios you mentioned. More content platforms like iQiyi are creating dedicated online sections for art films, making them accessible to a wider audience, while the success of commercial genre films has given many production companies more resources to support independent art filmmakers.
I always believe that the development of commercial genre films and auteur films is mutually beneficial. As commercial genre films flourish, the opportunities for young people to engage in creative practice will become increasingly abundant. In turn, the independent explorations of these young filmmakers can lead to new developments in commercial films, catering to audiences’ demand for fresh and diverse content.
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