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FESTIVALS China

Shanghai shines a light on international cinema

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- The biggest international film festival in China will run from 17-26 June, screening a wide array of European films

Shanghai shines a light on international cinema
Fault Condition by Cătălin Saizescu

The Shanghai International Film Festival kicks off its 20th edition tomorrow, 17 June. The festival will run until 26 June, when the main prizes will be awarded, including the Golden Goblet Awards for the films in the feature, documentary and animation competitions. Palme d’Or winner and Cannes stalwart Cristian Mungiu will chair the Golden Goblet jury, which will also see the participation of veteran Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski, among many other Asian and American professionals.

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The festival - and the Golden Goblet competition - will be opened by the new film by Danish two-time Palme d’Or winner Bille August, completely financed by China, The Chinese Widow. The film, starring Emile Hirsch, portrays the love story between an American soldier who makes an emergency landing in China after the 1942 Tokyo Raid and the young widow who rescues him.

European cinema is well represented in the competition, with the world premieres of Romanian filmmaker Cătălin Saizescu’s Fault Condition [+see also:
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(which marks the first time a Romanian film is vying for the award), German director Markus Goller’s My Brother Simple [+see also:
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 and the Russian-Lithuanian-Macedonian co-production Kharms [+see also:
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, directed by Ivan Bolotnikov, as well as the international premieres of In the Great and Terrible World [+see also:
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, directed by Italy’s Daniele Maggioni, Laura Perini and Maria Grazia Perria (previously screened at Bari’s Bif&st), British director Robert Mullan’s Mad to Be Normal [+see also:
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(starring Elisabeth Moss, David Tennant and Gabriel Byrne) and Polish director Maciej Pieprzyca’s I’m a Killer [+see also:
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interview: Maciej Pieprzyca
interview: Renata Czarnkowska-Listos a…
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. Dave McCary’s Brigsby Bear (USA), Cai Shangjun’s The Conformist (China), Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s No Bed of Roses (Bangladesh/India), Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come (China), Paolo Villaluna’s Pedicab (Philippines), Yasuo Furuhata’s Reminiscence (Japan) and Mostafa Taghizad’s Yellow (Iran) round off the selection.

Tonislav Hristov’s The Good Postman [+see also:
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(Bulgaria/Finland), Michele Santoro’s Robinù [+see also:
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(Italy) and Jakob PreussWhen Paul Came over the Sea [+see also:
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(Germany) will duke it out in the documentary competition, while Rasmus A Sivertsen’s In the Forest of Huckybucky [+see also:
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(Norway), Hugh Welchman and Dorota Kobiela’s Loving Vincent [+see also:
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interview: Dorota Kobiela
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(UK/Poland), and Toby Genkel and Reza Memari’s Richard the Stork [+see also:
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(Germany/Belgium/Luxembourg/Norway) will be locking horns in the animation section. 

The festival will also include retrospectives of the works of Jean-Pierre Melville and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the “Tribute to the Masters” section, as well as a Spotlight on Germany (screening films such as Soleen Yusef’s House without Roof [+see also:
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) and the section “The Belt and Road”, dedicated to films hailing from the countries that were once part of the Silk Road (this year screening Balkan films such as Train Driver's Diary [+see also:
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interview: Milos Radović
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, Scarred Hearts [+see also:
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interview: Radu Jude
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, The Liberation of Skopje [+see also:
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and The Constitution [+see also:
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interview: Rajko Grlić
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).

The SIFF has established itself as the main crossroads for Asian cinema, highlighting the wealth of the region's talent both in the Asian New Talent Award section, the second most important competition, and in the SIFF Project industry event, in which several film projects are selected to be developed with help from professionals from the continent.

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