Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition: Showcasing never-ending introspection and strength

The audience of documentaries in China is growing noticeably. As a visual expression of real life, the charm of documentaries is being recognized by more and more movie fans. In 2018, the Finnish documentary director Pirjo Honkasalo, who served as the jury president for the Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition at the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), said: "When you come to Shanghai to watch the screenings of these documentaries, it is like traveling around the world. Documentaries allow us to see the real world and the plights of life. They will make us more responsible, and teach people all over the world to understand and tolerate each other."

SIFF Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition is calling for entries from around the globe, and the deadline is March 31. Stay tuned to see who will be the jury members of the unit this year, and which masterpieces will be shortlisted.

The Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition of SIFF was established in 2015. Documentary directors Malcolm Clarke, Hara Kazuo, Iikka Vehkalahti, Pirjo Honkasalo, Viktor Kossakovsky and Zhang Yang successively served as president of the juries. Directors, producers and editors such as Kim Dong-won, Yung Chang, Kazuhiro Soda, Du Haibin, Wu Wenguang, Yoav Shamir and Lin Xudong were invited as jury members. Over the years, the works participating in the competition for the Golden Goblet Award for Best Documentary Film with their different dimensions and perspectives have visualized the brilliance of human nature and showcased the introspection and strength of human beings in the face of real-world difficulties.

After watching the five shortlisted documentaries for the 2018 Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition for which Pirjo Honkasalo chaired the jury, you would understand why the director said it is "like traveling around the world". The Chinese documentary IN MY EYES tells the story of a blind Chinese man who travels around the world and wants to make the world see his dream; the Dutch documentary THE LONG SEASON tells the story of refugees from Raqqa, the hardest-hit area of ISIS in Syria, who take refuge in Lebanon; the Canadian documentary MY ENEMY, MY BROTHER tells a bizarre and touching story triggered by the Iran-Iraq War; the American documentary ONE OF US tells the story of several young people leaving their extreme Orthodox community; and another American documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT records the illegal quota practices revealed by some whistleblowers in which NYPD officers were pressured to arrest  young minorities randomly -these amazing works are the common wealth of all mankind. No matter what the final outcome of the documentaries is, they trigger the audience to examine and think about themselves and society, thereby promoting the progress of society.

The concept of the Documentary Competition of the Golden Goblet Awards has won wide recognition. The famous Japanese documentary director Kazuo Hara, who chaired the Documentary Competition jury in 2016, brought his masterpiece shot over 12 years, MINAMATA MANDALA, to the 23rd SIFF in 2020 for its world premiere. He managed to show more people the emotions and voices recorded in the film, which revolves around the Minamata disease i.e. the MeHg contamination incident, one of the eight major public hazard incidents in the world. It follows the victims of the incidents to reveal the plight they face for years - they are old, poor and disease-ridden, and they continue to sue, appeal until the final victory, but still cannot get real change they want. The film is 6 hours long. Director Kazuo Hara's helplessness towards reality and his respect for the dignity of life have moved many viewers. Hara Kazuo once said: "What I pursue is something not broad, but something deep. How to express the individual beings, I think that is what documentaries should do."

The Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition has attracted a large number of outstanding works for selection and screenings. Director Zhou Hao's ALL IN shows the plight of middle-aged people, Director Fan Jian's STILL TOMORROW about poet Yu Xiuhua, and director Cheng Tsun-shing's LIKE THE DYER'S HAND about traditional Chinese literature scholar Florence Chia-ying Yeh, with a unique quality to them, have become subjects of heated discussions among audiences in recent years.

SIFF is open to excellent documentaries from all over the world for competition and screenings with the city spirit of "inclusiveness, pursuit of excellence, enlightenment and modesty". We hope that the stage of the Golden Goblet Awards Documentary Competition will give us a better understanding of the world.

TIPS：

The requirements for participating in Documentary Competition of Golden Goblet Awards: The film must be completed after June 1, 2022, with preference given to titles making their world premiere or international premiere, and Chinese films must make their world premiere at SIFF;

The film must not have competed at other FIAPF-accredited competitive non-specialized international film festivals; the runtime of the film shall not be less than 70 minutes; the format is DCP.

For the registration regulations for films to participate in the 25th SIFF competitions and screenings, you can refer to the relevant columns on its website at www.siff.com.