More stars, glamor set at film festival

Hayden Christensen

William Wang immediately booked tickets for five films he’d like to watch during the coming Shanghai International Film Festival once they were open for sales on June 7.

“I heard that this year’s event is bigger and more starry,” says the 35-year-old marketing specialist.

True. This year, the 17th film festival, to be held from June 14 to 22, will see a grander lineup led by Oscar-winning actresses Nicole Kidman and Natalie Portman.

Kidman will walk the red carpet at the opening ceremony, and her latest offering, “Grace of Monaco,” will be screened. Portman, on her first visit to Shanghai, will attend the festival’s Golden Goblet awards ceremony on June 22.

Other international stars include Britain’s Hugh Grant and Hayden Christensen from Canada. Grant will bring his new romantic movie, “The Rewrite,” while Christensen will be promoting the wartime epic,  “Outcast.” The Sino-US co-production also stars Nicolas Cage.

Organizers say the steady growth of annual box office receipts has made China the world’s second-largest film market, attracting many international filmmakers to debut their work.

But serious movie fans like Wang are interested in far more than just the big names, blockbusters and gossip about stars. Wang is more into the show biz industry. “Stories that happen behind the curtains are usually more interesting,” Wang says. “For example, I’d very much like to know how these exhibition films and Golden Goblet candidates were selected.”

In fact, for the first time the film festival released the name list of this year’s film selectors. About 100 people — including scholars, film critics and industry professionals — have spent months mulling over which movies should be shown during the festival.

Among them, 17 films are nominated for the Golden Goblet Award and 12 for the Asian New Talent Award.

Actress Gong Li will chair the 7-member international jury panel for the Golden Goblet Award.

Fu Wenxia, an official from the festival’s organizing committee, says there’s a desire to make film selection a more transparent part of the fest.

“More film professionals have been involved in this year’s film selection so we don’t miss any excellent work,” Fu says. “Next year, 50 ordinary Chinese citizens will also participate in the work. We will host a special contest of film reviewing this year to discover grassroots film critics.”

Recently, four veterans of the 100 or so film selectors, hailing from different backgrounds, talked to Shanghai Daily about how the films were selected and their expectations for the festival and the domestic film industry.