Overview: The Belt and Road Film Week
Since “The Silk Road Panorama” was launched in 2015, Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) has been responding to the Belt and Road initiatives highly positively. Upgrading every year, SIFF has always been supporting communication among filmmakers from the Belt and Road countries. Last year, SIFF launched The Belt and Road Film Week, and “The Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance” with 31 members from 29 countries. This year, the alliance welcomes 7 new members. The Belt and Road Film Week comes to its 2nd edition.
The Belt and Road Film Week contains the following events: Film Screenings and Post-Screening Talks, The Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance Press Conference, SIFF Market Screening and Meeting, The Belt and Road Film Week Opening Film, SIFF Market Showcase: Global Film Production Incentives, Film Culture Roundtable Talk, The Belt and Road Film Night, etc.
SIFF Market Screening and Meeting is a branding new section this year. In the program, there will be 7 films from all over the world screened for Chinese film buyers. In the event — SIFF Market Buyers Mix & Meeting, film buyers from China and abroad will come together with film producers and filmmakers discussing topics on buying film rights.
The Film Week will show 24 films from 24 different countries. The main theme of the film program is — The Light and Life — no matter where you are, with what cultural, social, religious backgrounds, the light in people’s heart, the light of people’s life is the universal value for us to seek. From these films, the program will launch 8 nominated films based on the opinions of professional film selectors. The three awards, including the Audience Choice Award, the Media Choice Awards (for film & filmmaker), will be launched depending on the votes from the audiences and media juries, in order to motivate their participation.
The Belt and Road Film Week welcomes with an open attitude more countries and film institutions to join The Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance. We also sincerely welcome films, filmmakers, press and audiences from all over the world to the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival. Through the medium of film, we shall work together to promote the development of film markets in different countries and areas and depict a promising blueprint of harmonious communication and cooperation through different civilizations.
SIFF MARKET SCREENING & MEETING
Time: June 16 – June 18, 2019
Location: Ballroom 3, SIFF Market, Shanghai Exhibition Center
The 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival launches the new program Market Screening & Meeting, showcasing seven international films at SIFF Market and connecting film buyers from China and aboard.
Market Screening Film Slate
1. Title: Call for Dreams
Israel / Japan | 81 min | Fantasy | Director: Ran Slavin
* 6 / 16 / 2019 10:00 AM
In a rain drenched Tokyo, the lives of a curious Japanese lady and an Israeli police detective intertwine through dreams. After fainting in a pachinko parlor, Eko complicates her life by publishing a \'Call for Dreams\' ad in a Tokyo newspaper. With her scooter she starts to visit strangers who leave enigmatic descriptions of their dreams on her analog answering machine and for a fee acts them out in return. But as the dreams start to seep into reality and a related police investigation of a murder in Tel Aviv unfolds, reality and fantasy intermittently intertwine.
2. Title: Between Two Seas
Egypt | 86 min | Drama / Family | Director: Anasa Tolba
* 6 /16 / 2019 12:00 PM
While on a short visit to her home village, a small rural island in near Cairo, Zahra’s daughter is exposed to a tragic accident. Following this incident, Zahra persists on getting her daughter’s right and insists on not only continuing her education but also benefiting her community. The film sheds light on dierent societal issues faced by women, especially in rural areas.
3. Title: The Sun Above Me Never Sets
Russia | 108 min | Comedy | Director: Luibov Borisova
* 6 / 16 / 2019, 2:00 PM
Having quarreled with his father, Altan comes to work in the High North. He will have to spend a whole month alone on a deserted island. But soon Altan finds out he has a neighbor – an old man called Baibal. He came here to live out his last days and asks Altan to bury him near his wife’s grave. The boy learns that the old man’s daughter went missing long ago. He talks Baibal into launching an entertainment blog to find his daughter, and at the same time, to postpone the man’s plan to die. Every day, Altan does his best to make Baibal look forward to living another beautiful day...
4. Title: Bille
Latvia / Lithuania / Czech Republic | 104 min | Drama / History | Director: Inara Kolmane
* 6 / 17 / 2019, 12:30 PM
An extraordinary and creative little girl attempts to comprehend the confusing adult world in Europe right before WWII and prove her own value despite the lack of appreciation and love from her mother. Confronted by her mother’s contempt for her, Bille tries to find an escape in her vivid imagination and look for the Dreamland. Growing up in the late 1930s poor working class family, she has many struggles ahead of her but eventually she finds the right way and proves that dreams may come true. BILLE is a women-led screen adaptation of the bestselling autobiographical novel BILLE by the famous Latvian author Vizma Belševica, a winner of Tomas Tranströmer Award and candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Filmed in the actual apartment the author spent her childhood in, the viewer is teleported back to 1930s and learns about her life in the most authentic way possible.
5. Title：My Foolish Heart
Poland | 83 min | Music / Biography | Director：Rolf van Eijk
* 6 / 17 / 2019, 2:30 PM
Amsterdam,1988. Detective Lucas is charged to investigate the mysterious death of music legend Chet Baker. While penetrating the mind of the infamous trumpetist, Lucas needs to face his own demons and shadows.
6. Title：Shindisi
Georgia | 105 min | War | Director：Dito Tsintsadze
* 6 / 18 / 2019, 10:00 AM
This film is based on the real story of the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. The village of Shindisi is occupied by the Russian forces. Most of the residents have fled except for local villagers Badri and Vazha; Badri has a terminally ill wife, Vazha is taking care of a 12-year-old daughter who lost her mother. After the agreement on a ceasefire, Georgian army is leaving the conflict zone with a guarantee of safe passage, but Russian military violates the peace agreement and ambushes the Georgian army near the village “Shindisi.” At the cost of their own lives, those who have remained try to hide the Georgian soldiers wounded in an unequal struggle.
7. Title: Werewolf
Poland / Netherland / Germany | 88 min | Thriller | Director: Adrian Panek
* 6 / 18 / 2019, 12:00 PM
Summer, 1945. Eight children from Gross Rosen concentration camp find a provisional hiding place in an abandoned orphanage nearby, lost among forests. It seems that after the horrors of the war feral children may come back to normal life. All of a sudden idyllic atmosphere of peace and quietness is interrupted. The nightmare returns. In the surrounding forests wolfhounds are circling. The dogs were released by SS officers before the liberation of Gross Rosen camp. Wolfhounds - taught and used to kill prisoners - surrounded young heroes in the orphanage. All the attempts of escaping the place are failing. Children without any food and water turn into madness and wilderness once again. But the real danger lurks inside the palace.
SIFF MARKET BUYERS MIX & MEETING
* 6 / 18 / 2019, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Intro
SIFF Market Buyers Mix & Meeting invites film buyers, producers, and film directors to meet and share their thoughts on film acquisition & promotion, film market, and potential opportunities.
Form
Panel in a relaxing atmosphere + free talk
Participants
International sales agents, Chinese film buyers & distributors, producers and filmmakers from both China and abroad
Topics
· What makes you buy a film? What factors may contribute to a buyer’s decision?
· How to bring a film into Chinese market? How to promote a Chinese film overseas?
· Difficulties may encounter in importing foreign films to China.
· Questions & solutions: puzzlements of Chinese buyers when selecting and importing Chinese films; misconception and obstructions of film promotion overseas.
· What/how are the peers doing now?
The Belt and Road Film Night
The Belt and Road Film Night is the awarding ceremony for The Belt and Road Film Week.
Here, we invite renowned filmmakers from both China and across the world to meet and share their understandings of cinema.
Here, after synthesizing professional opinions from film journalists and critics, we present the three awards to honor excellent films and filmmakers from The Belt and Road Film Week.
It is a grand gathering, a gathering of friendships, a gathering of films and filmmakers.
Agenda: Red Carpet, Guest Presentation, Special Performance, Award Presenting.
Guests: Representatives from The Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance members, Representatives of The Belt and Road Film Week film crews, Well-known filmmakers from domestic and abroad, film lovers…
Date: 18:15-21:00, June 19, 2019
Venue: Walt Disney Grand Theater, Shanghai
Last year our guests: Wu Jing, Xu Zheng, Yan Geling, Chen Sicheng, Celina Jade, Tian Hua, Wang Likun, Manfred Wong
The Belt and Road Film Week Screening
CRYSTAL SWAN
DIRECTOR: Darya Zhuk
Country/Region:
Belarus / USA / Germany / Russia 2018
In post-Soviet Belarus, unemployed raver Velya dreams of emigrating to the U.S. After purchasing blank letterhead and forging proof of employment to win a much coveted visa, her dream appears within reach… Until Velya realizes the American consulate plans to call the fake phone number on her application to confirm her employment. Velya’s only solution is to endure a week in a small factory town to convince the authorities of her supposed job. She locates the cramped Soviet apartment on the other end of the line, overrun by a family preparing for the wedding of their son. The imperious mother refuses to lie for her, but Velya negotiates a solution: she can answer the phone during business hours as if she works at the factory. But Velya’s presence soon upends both the family’s and the town’s order, with potentially disastrous consequences for all.
A FIRST FAREWELL
DIRECTOR: WANG Lina
Country/Region:
China 2018
Isa Yasan is a Muslim boy from the countryside in Xinjiang, China. Isa loves his mother deeply, and is torn among taking care of his deaf mother, going to school and doing farm work. He has a friend, a lively little girl named Kalbinur. They are taking care of an adorable lamb together. Kalbinur\'s grades in her Uyghur are good, but her Chinese scores are terrible. Her mother wants to move to the city and find temporary work so Kalbinur can go to a Chinese school. That winter, Isa\'s father decides to send Isa\'s mother to a nursing home, and Kalbinur\'s family makes plans to leave the village. Isa reads a story called "A First Farewell" in school. Although he does not fully understand the idea of farewell, he will soon experience it himself…
SCANDINAVIAN SILENCE
DIRECTOR: Martti Helde
Country/Region:
Estonia / France / Belgium 2019
A film with three parts, two characters and one obsession: to prevent the past from taking over. We never dreamt of a good life. We dreamt of a normal life.
GENESIS
DIRECTOR: Árpád Bogdán
Country/Region:
Hungary 2018
The three stories within GENESIS are rooted in the biblical notion of family: a Roma boy’s family are killed and the perfect world of his childhood is destroyed; a teenage mother goes to extreme lengths to ensure that her child is saved from the fate that she was forced to endure; a successful lawyer risks her career for the truth to rediscover the faith she lost with her child. All three stories are based on the real events that took place in Hungary: the Roma murders, when a neo-nazi group terrorised Roma families for over a year. These events claimed many victims, including 6 deaths. The protagonists are, in one way or another, affected by these events, which change their lives fundamentally.
SUI DHAAGA: MADE IN INDIA
DIRECTOR: Sharat Katariya
Country/Region:
India 2018
Mauji and Mamta are a married couple living with Mauji’s parents, whose father is about to retire. To keep the stove running, Mauji keeps succumbing to his bully boss until his wife encourages her to put his dignity above anything. With Mamta\'s support, Mauji set up a tailoring business in hope of making it big. In the process of supporting each other while doing their own business, the couple feels getting really closer to each other for the first time in their lives… This is a loving story of a poor but hopeful Indian family.
BILLE
DIRECTOR: Inara Kolmane
Country/Region:
Latvia / Lithuania / Czech Republic 2018
An extraordinary and creative little girl attempts to comprehend the confusing adult world in Europe right before WWII and prove her own value despite the lack of appreciation and love from her mother. Confronted by her mother’s contempt for her, Bille tries to find an escape in her vivid imagination and look for the Dreamland. Growing up in the late 1930s poor working class family, she has many struggles ahead of her but eventually she finds the right way and proves that dreams may come true. BILLE is a women-led screen adaptation of the bestselling autobiographical novel BILLE by the famous Latvian author Vizma Belševica, a winner of Tomas Tranströmer Award and candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Filmed in the actual apartment the author spent her childhood in, the viewer is teleported back to 1930s and learns about her life in the most authentic way possible.
GOOD MORNING
DIRECTOR: Bahij Hojeij
Country/Region:
Lebanon / France 2018
A modern coffee with a large bay window overlooking a lively Beirut street. A screen hung on the wall broadcasting news. In this unique location and for 16 days / sequences, a general, aged 78, and an army doctor, 81, come to play crosswords in order to preserve their memory and fight against oblivion. Young people from different backgrounds come to the coffee; one of them is a journalist who has a crush on a young waitress. Once in a way, the two old man take a break and start observing, through the large bay window, the street: living scene of the city. As the film progresses, we enter the thoughts of our two characters, confronted to a chaotic world and to disappearance: theirs, and that of a certain Lebanon and of a region filled with violence, terrorism and wars.
THE SUN ABOVE ME NEVER SETS
DIRECTOR: Lyubov Borisova
Country/Region:
Russia 2019
Having quarreled with his father, Altan comes to work in the High North. He will have to spend a whole month alone on a deserted island. But soon Altan finds out he has a neighbor – an old man called Baibal. He came here to live out his last days and asks Altan to bury him near his wife’s grave. The boy learns that the old man’s daughter went missing long ago. He talks Baibal into launching an entertainment blog to find his daughter, and at the same time, to postpone the man’s plan to die. Every day, Altan does his best to make Baibal look forward to living another beautiful day...
IN SPRING BREEZE
DIRECTOR: Tauquir Ahmed
Country/Region:
Bangladesh 2019
In 1952, a Pakistani police officer comes to a small town in southern east Pakistan. The eccentric officer is not only a proud Nationalist but also a racist cruel being. He orders all soldiers in the police station to speak in Urdu, but next morning he finds absolute silence, because most of the people did not know the foreign language Urdu. Then he arranges Urdu language class for them and all passers-by. He writes a letter to the Prime Minister Nazim Uddin to implement the announcement by Mohammad Ali Zinnah, the father of the nation. The letter never reaches the Prime Minister but coincidentally the Prime Minister declares that Urdu shall be the only state language. Now he becomes more aggressive to change people’s language and all the sign boards. Students want to protest the issue and that annoys him more. He bans all sorts of protests and engages the government party cadres to control. One of the students Monju dies in an encounter and the pregnant sweeper’s daughter commits suicide. The small town breaks into a silent protest and resembles the whole country.
UNREMEMBER
DIRECTOR: Flavia Castro
Country/Region:
Brazil / France / Qatar 2018
Joana grew up in Paris surrounded by rock and literature. But in the early 80s, when amnesty is granted in Brazil, Joana moves back to the country she barely remembers, overnight and against her will. In Rio, she recovers pieces of memories from a fragmented childhood and a missing father. Not everything is real, not everything is imagination. And as she remembers, Joana is able to write her own story in the present tense.
IRINA
DIRECTOR: Nadejda Koseva
Country/Region:
Bulgaria 2018
Irina is a part-time waitress in a small Bulgarian town. On the very same day when she is fired, her husband gets into a serious accident. Irina’s family is trapped in poverty. To make ends meet, she becomes a surrogate mother. Fights, despair and the seed of life growing in her belly bring on another wave to this rough and wrecked life. Slowly, Irina discovers what it means to love and to forgive.
EXT. NIGHT
DIRECTOR: Ahmad Abdalla
Country/Region:
Egypt / United Arab Emirates 2018
Moe, Toutou, Mostafa, three individuals who represent three different social strata were brought together at one extraordinary night by fate, breaking the social norm and flirting with its boundaries. Each is fighting his/her own battle, leading to a journey they didn’t expect inside their city. And they see a side of the city they never witnessed before. As a road movie, the director shows the life customs of different classes and genders in Egypt through a trip of three people and overlaps reality and fictional images together. It also reflects the current existing social conflicts in Egypt. It is a cozy and gorgeous film that shows the concept and big reality through dialogue and dramatic conflicts.
HORIZON
DIRECTOR: Tinatin Kajrishvili
Country/Region:
Georgia / Sweden 2018
Giorgi and Ana, in their late 30-s, once a loving couple is in the difficult process of separation, which goes quietly without attracting attention of others. Affect and shock seems to be passed, but getting used to new way of life lasts long and seems endless. Giorgi can’t get used to it. The pain of being rejected from the beloved, closest person doesn’t allow him to start new life. He isolates himself from the rest of the world, moves far, near the sea, settles in abandoned place surrounded with lonely people. Ana waits for all to pass, but the end turns to be unexpected for both of them, leaving Ana in guilt and vagueness.
WE ARE ALL TOGETHER
DIRECTOR: Kamal Tabrizi
Country/Region:
Iran 2019
There was an airlines company on the verge of bankruptcy. The manager held a meeting with the co-owners. They came to a solution: To gather a group of suicidal individuals and come to an agreement with them. She met a wide range of people: a surgeon who was expert in using the phrase; a filmmaker who had not won even a single national award for his films; a teacher who was known for his violent reactions to his students; a pilot who was famous for his plane crashes; a smuggler who lost a truck full of drugs; and so on. The bunch of the losers were supposed to board a plane altogether, but one of them did not come to the airport. Instead of the missing passenger, one stranger entered the plane. With a stranger among them, taking every step devised in the plan seemed to be complicated, mysterious, and of course absurd – however they were all together. For this reason, the manager, the pilot and the passengers are questioned - all of them along with an absolute stranger…
THE DAY AFTER I’M GONE
DIRECTOR: Nimrod Eldar
Country/Region:
Israel 2019
Yoram, a 50-year-old veterinarian living in Tel-Aviv is forced to re-examine his relationship with his adolescent daughter Roni, after she wishes to end her life. He decides to take her on a journey to visit her mother’s family, a process of self and mutual discovery in a primordial desert land enveloping the Dead Sea. Nimrod Eldar’s first feature tells the stories of injured animals, injured daughters and an injured country. Leaving Tel Aviv might be the last hope for the single father.
THE TRAITOR
DIRECTOR: Marco Bellocchio
Country/Region:
Italy / France / Germany / Brazil 2019
The film was selected by the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. This is the story of a man called a traitor. The real life of Tommaso Buscetta the so called "boss of the two worlds", first mafia informant in Sicily 1980\'s. He originally wanted to retire from the underworld, but his brother and little son were killed by the mafia in Brazil. He was mad and chose to be extradited to Italy to cooperate with the police to complete revenge.
SASHA WAS HERE
DIRECTOR: Ernestas Jankauskas
Country/Region:
Lithuania / Finland 2018
Jurga and Tomas are driving to meet the 6-year-old girl they plan to adopt. Once they arrive at the orphanage, they find out there’s been a mistake. Instead of the girl, 12-year-old boy, called Sasha greets them. Director offers them a single option – either they spend a day with the boy and she will explain the error to the adoption agency, or they refuse and she records their refusal and they won’t get a girl. Jurga decides to accept the offer without consulting with Tomas first. The day becomes very difficult for Jurga – Sasha is swearing, stealing, and smoking. Tom is not talking with her. When it appears that Sasha also knows that he won’t be adopted, Jurga promises to take the boy to adventure park. By the end of the day, all three main characters will need to find an answer to what is a real family.
HEAVEN’S WAITING
DIRECTOR: Dan Villegas
Country/Region:
Philippines 2018
Lisang is two years late. After dying from a complication of diabetes in her 60’s, Lisang has overstayed in her waiting room in purgatory, occasionally causing other souls trouble for her own entertainment. But today her waiting ends. Today, she is finally set to crossover and her room is to be leased to a new tenant: Manolo, her newly deceased ex-boyfriend.
WEREWOLF
DIRECTOR: Adrian Panek
Country/Region:
Poland / Netherlands / Germany 2018
Summer, 1945. Eight children from Gross Rosen concentration camp find a provisional hiding place in an abandoned orphanage nearby, lost among forests. It seems that after the horrors of the war feral children may come back to normal life. All of a sudden idyllic atmosphere of peace and quietness is interrupted. The nightmare returns. In the surrounding forests wolfhounds are circling. The dogs were released by SS officers before the liberation of Gross Rosen camp. Wolfhounds - taught and used to kill prisoners - surrounded young heroes in the orphanage. All the attempts of escaping the place are failing. Children without any food and water turn into madness and wilderness once again. But the real danger lurks inside the palace.
PARKING
DIRECTOR: Tudor Giurgiu
Country/Region:
Romania 2019
Adrian is a poet, a Romanian immigrant working as night guard at a car dealership in Cordoba. He speaks Spanish, he lives utterly alone and all he wants is to write and start a new life. His encounter with Maria, during the Night of SanJuan, seems written in the stars. Their passion, oblivious of anyone and anything, will soon be tested by the challenges they must face together. Love and literature will save Adrian.
THE BALKAN LINE
DIRECTOR: Andrey Volgin
Country/Region:
Russia / Serbia 2019
Yugoslavia, 1999. The Russian task force receives an order to take control of the Slatina airport in Kosovo and hold it until the arrival of the reinforcements. The task force is squaring off with the terrorists in an uphill battle while Russian peacekeepers and NATO forces are rushing to support. But for Andrei Shatalov, the commander of the task force, politics are an afterthought. His girlfriend Yasna is among the hostages at the airport.
SIBEL
DIRECTOR: Çağla Zencirci / Guillaume Giovanetti
Country/Region:
Turkey / France / Germany / Luxembourg 2018
25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey\'s Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area. Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighboring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening and vulnerable, he is the first one to take a fresh look at her.
SORRY, WE MISSED YOU
DIRECTOR: Ken Loach
Country/Region:
UK / France /Belgium 2019
The film was selected by the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. Ricky and his family have been fighting an uphill struggle against debt since the 2008 financial crash. An opportunity to wrestle back some independence appears with a shiny new van and the chance to run a franchise as a self employed delivery driver. It\'s hard work, and his wife\'s job as a carer is no easier. The family unit is strong but when both are pulled in different directions everything comes to breaking point.
THE FAREWELL
DIRECTOR: Lulu Wang
Country/Region:
USA / China 2019
In this funny, uplifting tale based on an actual lie, Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi (Awkwafina) reluctantly returns to Changchun to find that, although the whole family knows their beloved matriarch, Nai-Nai (grandma), has been given mere weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell Nai Nai herself. With The Farewell, writer/director Lulu Wang has created a heartfelt celebration of both the way we perform family and the way we live it, masterfully interweaving a gently humorous depiction of the good lie in action with a richly moving story of how family can unite and strengthen us, often in spite of ourselves.
Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism
