China’s Pingyao International Film Festival has officially named Lin Xudong as artistic director and revealed details of a fresh international film fund.
The announcement, made in Berlin during the European Film Market, also included the addition of seasoned film programmers Naoki Kamiya and Junko Fukatsu to the team. They will serve as programmers for foreign-language films, alongside existing team members Wu Jueren, the programmer for Chinese language films, and shorts programmer Song Jia.
PYIFF’s programme was previously overseen by former artistic director Marco Mueller from 2017 to 2021. Lin stepped in at that time and Mueller became chief consultant for the festival, responsible for foreign film selection. Mueller stepped down after the seventh edition of PYIFF last October to focus on the launch of the Macau Asia-Europe Youth Film Festival.
PYIFF founder Jia Zhang-Ke said he was confident the new team would “collaborate closely, adhere to the festival’s selection philosophy, and introduce more outstanding foreign films to Pingyao”.
At an event to announce the new team in Berlin – the festival’s first international event since the pandemic – details of a new fund were also revealed.
Wings International, a fund co-launched by Jia Zhang-Ke and Hello Group CEO Tang Yan, will aim to support five non-Chinese film projects each year that have completed scripts. Committee members of the fund include Japanese film producer Shozo Ichiyama, Hong Kong film programmer Jacob Wong, and Casper Liang, CEO of PYIFF. Further details are expected ahead of the festival’s eighth edition. Dates have yet to be revealed but last year’s edition ran October 11-18.
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