Festival puts a spotlight on short films

Two shorts, No Entry and Heading South shared the Post Wave Film Academy Award, which was named after the Post Wave Film Academy, an internet-based film education brand.

Love in the Air, an award-winning short directed by 20-year-old Kyle Hu that opened the festival, scooped the Committee Honor.

Deriving from a film culture salon, the annual event was initiated by Jia Zhangke in 2016 and has since been organized by the Jia Zhangke Art Center.

The name, 86358, a cluster of puzzling numbers, was inspired by China's Telephone Code Plan, with 86 as China's country code and 358 as the area code of Lyuliang, where Fenyang is located.

Although the festival is held in Fenyang, a small city in the hinterland, "We hope it can transcend space and celebrate diversity," said festival curator Xu Zhipeng, who said all entries had been produced after August 2019.

"To some degree, they represent the best Chinese language shorts made over the last year and mirror the undercurrents of our era," said Xu, adding pitching sessions will be included in future festivals so that young filmmakers are able to pitch their completed films or projects in development while striking connections with potential collaborators from the film industry.