At the awards ceremony of China’s FIRST International Film Festival (FIFF) on Sunday (July 28), the coveted best narrative film prize went unclaimed due to a lack of “outstanding” or “groundbreaking” titles in competition.
It marks the first time since the launch of the festival in 2006, held high on the Tibetan Plateau in the city of Xining, that the award has failed to be won.
The jury, led by Black Dog director Guan Hu, said in a statement: “The function of the festival is to call out those pioneering works, to discover those who step into higher stages, and to honour those who have made their mark on the future. Looking at the creative ecology of this year’s vision, we can see good rather than outstanding, stable rather than groundbreaking. Therefore, the jury committee have decided to leave the honour of best narrative feature vacant.”
Scroll down for full list of winners
FIFF is well-regarded as a champion of independent Chinese film and has previously awarded its top prize to the likes of Jigme Trinley’s One And Four while supporting projects such as Jiang Xiaoxuan’s To Kill A Mongolian Horse, which is set to world premiere in Giornate degli Autori at Venice.
Celebrating the selection of its 18th edition at Xining’s Qinghai Grand Theatre, this year’s grand jury prize was awarded Chen Yanbin’s Sailing Song of June, which tells a story of youth in a small town in the mountainous Chinese province of Guizhou.
The best director award went to Jiang Yuzhi, whose Shards tells the story of relationships within a Chinese family on the verge of breakdown against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic.
Best performance was awarded to Huang Jingyi, lead actress of Zhang Xuyu’s Fishbone, who plays a sensitive adolescent girl with a strained relationship with her mother. Best artistic originality went to Jiang Geng, the art director of Chen Jiwen’s The Small Village, which tells the story of a failed film crew on a very low budget.
Further awards included best screenplay, which went to Huo Xueying and Zhang Yudi of The Midsummer’s Voice about students of Peking Opera; while the Spirit of Freedom prize was awarded to Fu Zongsheng, the director of Chengzi_1, a four-hour feature about the lives and fortunes of new media bloggers.
Winners of two audience awards were Xu Huijing’s Unstoppable and Jiang Yuzhi’s Shards in the documentary and drama feature categories respectively.
Unstoppable also won film of the year in the First Frame competition, a section with a special focus on films with female characters and female themes, supported by fashion house Chanel. The documentary follows the first ever Asian Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s world champion, Zhang Weili, who found herself in a slump once her career peaked. A special mention also went to Yuan Yuan’s When Winter Comes.
FIRST International Film Festival 2024 winners
Best Narrative Feature: N/A
Grand Jury Prize: Sailing Song of June, dir. Chen Yanbin
Best Director: Jiang Yuzhi, Shards
Best Performance: Huang Jingyi, Fishbone
Best Artistic Originality: Jiang Geng, The Small Village
Best Screenplay: Huo Xueying and Zhang Yudi, The Midsummer’s Voice
Spirit of Freedom: Fu Zongsheng, Chengzi_1
Best Documentary: I’m Gonna Find You, dir. Meng Xiao
Best Short: Extracurricular Activity, dirs. Dean Wei and Xu Yidan
Best Animated Short: Candy, dir. Ying Xun
Special Mentions
The Dreamer In The Jungle, dir. Tu Hailun
Unstoppable, dir. Xu Huijing
Baozhda, dir. Keran Abukasimu
First Frame 2024 winners
Film of the Year: Unstoppable, dir. Xu HuiJing
Short Film of the Year: Braided, dir. Zhang Chenzi
Special Mention Award: When Winter Comes, dir. Yuan Yuan
No comments yet