Maverick director steals the show

At a forum of the 17th Shanghai International Film Festival, Jiang Wen managed to steal the show by making an unannounced, last-minute appearance.

It was literally "last-minute" as he popped onstage during the last 10 minutes of the event.

The maverick filmmaker has been upstaging the whole film industry. In China, he is widely considered a pure genius who is simply unable to turn out uninteresting works. His upcoming release, Gone With the Bullets, is whetting cinephile appetite with every tidbit of gossip. But instead of promoting his own film, he announced at the SIFF forum that he will help produce five to 10 films for emerging directors.

Jiang even joked about his support for LuChuan, whose directorial debut The Missing Gun was produced by, and stars, Jiang. "Lu said I gave him a hard time, but who would turn down this kind of treatment if someone got you money and filled your starring role?"

Jiang credits German director Volker Schlondorff for launching his own directorial career. "He didn't even want the producer credit," Jiang says. This year, the maker of TimDrumhas a new film, Diplomacy, about a German military officer's refusal to carry out Hitler's orders to blowup Paris, that is in competition for the Golden Goblet Award. SIFF organizers are excited that filmmakers of that caliber are participating in their festival.

But then, this is the Shanghai event's 17th incarnation, and it has built a sizeable fan base and become a launching pad for young filmmakers, especially those from across Asia. Its Asian New Talent Award, a parallel competition, attracts some of the brightest filmmakers emerging from Asia's vibrant filmmaking scene.

One of SIFF's greatest strengths, however, is in presenting classics from all over the world that have virtually no other chance of hitting the big screen in China. This year, as usual, hundreds of classics have been screening around the city of 23 million, including Godfather, Last Year at Marien bad and China' sown Stage Sisters, newly restored to its original glory. Recent award winners, such as Black Coal, Thin Ice and Dallas Buyers Club are also represented.

Half of the excitement about SIFF is behind doors or in the corridors, with both executives and creative types schmoozing at parties or between forum sessions. Hundreds of international guests descend on the city by the Huangpu River and explore opportunities in the vast China market, currently No 2 in box-office grosses and expected to over-take the US in five years. Co-production is always a hot issue, yet a new trend is emerging with more Chinese participation in global projects than the other way round. Several Chinese companies have announced plans to partner with Hollywood to make English-language films, including an $8 million project between Disney and Shanghai Media Group.

As China's own film industry gains momentum, fewer insiders see Hollywood as the archenemy. "It is a presence that should not be ignored or taken lightly. But there's still much we can learn from Holly-wood before we can export our films to the world," says Xu Zheng, director of Lost in Thailand, amid-budget film that set the box-office for a Chinese-language film in the domestic market.

raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 06/23/2014 page8)