I-SIFF Gala Night of 20th SIFF was held in Putuo District

On the evening of June 21, the I-SIFF Gala Night of 20th Shanghai International Film Festival was held in Putuo District. The seven films possessing internet genes – FIST & FAITH, THE HOUSE THAT NEVER DIES Ⅱ, THE ONE, TIME CAGE, PIT FATHER GAME, FATHER AND SON and LOVE IS A BROADWAY HIT attended the event to demonstrate what is diversity and explosion, and the true meaning of internet films.
 
Carry out I-SIFF serial programs
Facilitate producing new fine works

As the first competitive non-specialized film festival in the world that pays attention to the field of internet, the Shanghai International Film Festival has organized the I-SIFF serial programs since 2015. With humanistic care and through innovative approaches, the project keeps an eye upon each connecting link between internet and cinema from distinctive perspectives, thus having made a number of impressive contributions. For the past three years, the I-SIFF Gala Night has been always adhering to the “Internet+” action, focusing on the current mainstream topics and industry trends, building up an exchange platform for Chinese and foreign internet organizations, and forging an innovative operation pattern which is close to the netizens.

Based on the experience accumulated from holding the events in the last two years, the 2017 I-SIFF serial programs have optimized the overall activity setting, and invited distinguished guests and popular figures to discuss about the hot issues, publicize the films to be released during the second half of Year 2017, screen the VR films inserted with latest technologies and construct a versatile platform for the showing, exchanging, financing and publicizing of internet films, which adds a unique scenery to the SIFF.

Face identification displays real-time data
Internet creates non-interface interaction 
 
The era of Internet calls for individualism and values engagement. Thus, the I-SIFF Gala Night took the advantage of the interaction rooted in internet. At the beginning of the event, when the guests stepped on the red carpet, the amazing face identification system started to work. The three actors OU Hao, YU Qian and DONG Chengpeng got scanned in turn, and after several seconds, the audience survey statistics corresponding to each of them, provided by Maoyan Film Big Data, were displayed on the screen: OU Hao, the leading actor of FIST & FAITH, whose most attractive body part is eyes; the audience expect to see him working with YANG Mi, and he is most popular among the group between 19-24 years old. As for YU Qian, who is joked by everyone about his obsession with perm, the audiences find his hair style is the most charming part, and look forward to his collaboration with SONG Dandan; his fans are mostly over 40 years old. DONG Chengpeng, whose film career started right from the internet, is found out to be most attractive to the people between 25-29 years old, who would like to see him collaborating with LIU Yan again. Both the fans at scene and the actors themselves were surprised by high-tech device.

That night, the Gala was also broadcast live on PPTV, Tencent, Youku, iQiyi, BILIBILI and other video websites, where the internet users could watch what was happening at the scene in a real-time manner, as if they were in the theatre.

Thanks to the connecting through screens, this special film gathering made possible the face-to-face interaction between fans and popular online casts, celebrities, as well as offered strong support to promote the Chinese new films to be released in the second half of 2017.

 
Stars shine upon internet
Fancy interaction stimulates audience’s curiosity

From the numerous cameras on the red carpet to the waving hands off the stage, the falling of night could not stop the stars on the stage from glistening. During the event, seven crews had fancy and creative interaction with the audience, igniting the hot and wild June.

Crew of FATHER AND SON

Following JIAN BING MAN, DONG Chengpeng brought his newest work FATHER AND SON to the I-SIFF Gala Night. As the opening guest of the night, he shared with the audience the warm film story between him and his father – Where Has the Time Gone.

At the interaction part, the crew served a cuisine delivered from Beijing by air – authentic Beijing pot-stewed dish, for in the film, the girl, DONG has a crush on, is the owner of a pot-stewed food store, and moreover, the taste of the food had something in common with the lingering charm of the film. After inviting the host and audience to have a try, the crew expressed their wish: hope this dish could add more flavor to the summer movie season!

Crew of THE ONE

Among the crew of the comedy THE ONE, the most surprising one may be the singer CAI Guoqing, who totally abandoned the previous gentle and amiable image and played a scheming villain in the movie. LU Zhengyu, the director, script writer and actor of the film particularly adapted CAI’s well-known song 365 Wishes to the theme song of CAI’s character in the film. As invited by the host, CAI Guoqing sung the widely loved song again in front of the audience, immediately turning the event into the Spring Festival Gala.

Crew of FIST & FAITH

FIST & FAITH is a film combining elements of youth, hot-blood, struggling, etc. The average age of no more than 25 years old, appealing appearance, the main actors received zealous responses from the female fans when appearing on the stage. During the interaction, OU Hao, ZHANG Ningjiang, DING Guansen and others took out some wooden boards and performed the skill of breaking boards with bare hands. It turned out that there were many fights in FIST & FAITH, so all the cast received martial training for one month before starting the shooting, ensuring both the genuineness of the production and the safety of the actors.

LOVE IS A BROADWAY HIT

LOVE IS A BROADWAY HIT tells a story about four young people leave their hometown for New York, pursue their dreams and find their love in Manhattan. When the crew walked on the carpet, the leading actor WANG Chuanjun’s “eccentric” dress-up has caught a lot of attention. He said during the event that it was to match with the style of Tony ,the character he played in the film. He also mentioned that before starting the shooting in LOVE IS A BROADWAY HIT, he had stopped working and merely lived on the money saved before for 11 months. In such a decadent circumstance, WANG felt like he was struggling for life with his character in New York during the shooting, after which, he also walked out of confusion, and came back to the normal state.

THE HOUSE THAT NEVER DIES Ⅱ

Instead of using the original cast, THE HOUSE THAT NEVER DIES Ⅱ invites MEI Ting and GENG Le to take on the leading actress and actor. Thriller has always been the most suitable genre to test the acting skills of professional actors. Since MEI Ting and GENG Le are both experienced performers, the host proposed to have a test on their acting skills at the scene, asking the two to choose one scenario to perform. After they chose thriller & horror and love confession respectively, the host gave them the lines, which are actually the lyrics of Long Time No See and The Hottest Ethnic Trend. Although the lines and scenes were totally out of tune, their performance was still professional and catching enough to win the acclaim of the audience.

TIME CAGE

TIME CAGE is an imaginative film, where the hero played by WANG Ning finds out that he has the ability to enter the mysterious time loop, and when he is pleased with his talent, his girlfriend faces the danger of an air crash. To save her and the passengers, he has to use his ability. However, is this time loop that keeps circulating a tool to satisfy his own desire, or a cage that encloses himself?

Compared with the novel story setting, the crew of TIME CAGE were far less “trust-worthy”. They showed up on the stage with a cage in each one’s hand, and in each cage, there was a special bird. After giving the cages to the audience, the host asked WANG Ning what he would do if he went back to the time when he was one year old. As soon as he heard the question, WANG lay on the floor and started rolling about and crying like an infant, which won the hearty applause of the audience.

PIT FATHER GAME

PIT FATHER GAME is actually the first film in which the crosstalk actor YU Qian play the leading role. In the story themed in the relationship between father and daughter, the naughty daughter has designed several games to “pit” YU Qian, but Yu said that he was quite happy to be “pitted”.

One of the highlights in the film was a scene about YU holding a birthday party for his daughter in the film, and to strengthen the emotional atmosphere, the crew purchased the copyright of XU Wei’s song Perfect Life. After adaptation, the song was sung by YU’s character in the movie, which ingeniously shows his love for the daughter and his complex feeling for life. At the scene, YU Qian also brought the song to the audience. The missing for youth and loneliness with the time passing conveyed through the melody left a deep impression to the audience.

The different crews coming on the stage together to produce different sparkles, underlines the all-inclusive preferences of the audience in the era of I-SIFF, which is more conducive to creating an active atmosphere for film exchange and coproduction, and breaking through frames and limits to reach more brilliant development.

At the end, Director of Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture, Radio, Film & TV YU Xiufen and Deputy Secretary of CPC Putuo District and Mayor of Putuo District, Zhou Minhao injected the energy of time to a special device and put an end to the I-SIFF serial programs of 2017 Shanghai International Film Festival.