The Beijing festival’s jury is set to outshine the competition that it’s judging.
The members of the Beijing International Film Festival‘s (BIFF) jury for its Tiantan Awards will likely outshine any of the titles in competition, with top international film names including actor Jean Reno (The Crimson Rivers), director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King), and as previously reported, jury head Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror) on board to pick the winners.
Joining the three jury members above are Chinese actress Jiang Wenli (Farewell My Concubine), Romanian director Radu Jude (Scarred Hearts), Hong Kong director Mabel Cheung (The Illegal Immigrant), and producer Paolo del Brocco (Fire at Sea).
That esteemed group will be judging 15 films from 19 countries, including two mainstream Chinese films, Mr. No Problem and one of 2016’s top box office performers, Operation Mekong. The other films are: A Kid (France); Alma de Sant Pere (Finland); Coffee (Italy, China, Belgium); Dim The Fluorescents (Canada); House of Others (Georgia, Russia, Spain, Croatia); Kanon (Japan); Luka (Georgia); Night of a 1000 Hours (Luxembourg, Austria, Holland); The Death and Life of Otto Bloom (Australia); The Poisoning Angel (France); The Sis (Iran); Tiger Theory (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic); and Two Lottery Tickets (Romania), according to state media reports.
BIFF, which has already begun public screenings but begins in earnest on April 16, is featuring seven David Lynch films, showing all seven installments of The Fast and the Furious series ahead of the worldwide and China debut of The Fate of the Furious on April 14, and similarly screening all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies ahead of the expected release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales in May. No Chinese release is set yet, but the film passed censorship in China at the end of March, paving the way for a possible day-and-date release.
The Beijing Film Market runs April 19-21, with 190 exhibitors scheduled to participate, including 74 international participants.
