SIFF PROJECT | Xu Zheng, LIAO Ching-Sung and Jojo HUI, forming the SIFF PROJECT Jury

The 21st Shanghai International Film Festival announced today: This year\'s SIFF PROJECT Jury will be chaired by the well-known Chinese film director, producer and actor Xu Zheng, and have the editor and producer LIAO Ching-Sung, and the producer and screenwriter Jojo HUI as the judges. The SIFF PROJECT will be held from June 17th to 19th when the three judges will participate in the entire event and select three awards: “Best Young Director Project”, “Best Creative Project” and “Project of the Most Investment Value”. The winners will be announced at the awarding party. A jury consisting of three senior filmmakers will not only encourage projects of different styles and types, but also offer suggestions on creation and production in various aspects for projects with development potentials.

This year witnesses the 12th SIFF PROJECT which is born in 2007. As a platform linking all fields of the film industry, it is committed to showing outstanding film projects and high-quality creative teams to the industry. Its highly efficient, professional, and pragmatic operation has received wide attention and high appraisal from the industry making it gradually an influential movie project financing platform in Asia. Since its birth, so far, SIFF PROJECT has facilitated the production of 53 works.

Since last year, the SIFF PROJECT has brought forth new fruits. The project "Blind Love for You, and for Me" in the previous session has been successfully entered the filming phase and is expected to be completed this summer; last year\'s projects in the first training camp "Mammoth Exams" and "Light Blue Amber" "Sweet Life", “Tattoo”, “Calmness”, “Children\'s Map”, and “Poet” all have their filming finished and have entered the post-production phase. And “Find Romie”, "At the Wharf" and "Seeking and Tracing" have all debuted in major international film festivals and been staged in theaters successively upon completion. “The Tropical Past”, winning title of the “Special Project of Dirty Monkey 72 Transformations Film Project” last year, was awarded the VFF Award for the co-production market of the Berlin International Film Festival in February this year successfully. Currently, the film is under preparation and is expected to start its filming this summer.

In recent years, SIFF has been continuously exploring and improving the supporting mechanism for the new generation of filmmakers and striving to forge SIFF PROJECT into a comprehensive industrial communication platform. In 2017, the SIFF PROJECT added a SIFF PROJECT Lab focusing on project incubation and early development. This year, the SIFF PROJECT will expand the collecting scope to projects after filming but under production, providing post-production and domestic and international launching support. At present, the 21st SIFF PROJECT has entered the final review stage, and will announce nominees of “Youth Film Project”, SIFF PROJECT training camp and projects under production in three batches in mid-May.

To obtain more professional advices and supports in the development and production process, the SIFF PROJECT, this year, will invite senior filmmakers active at home and abroad as judges. Previous judges include: Directors Huang Jianxin, He Ping, Xu Xiaoming, Guan Hu, Cao Baoping, Zhang Yibai, Sun Zhou, Zhao Deyin; producers Gary Kurtz, Bennett Walsh, Xu Ligong, Shozo Ichiyama, Zhao Haicheng, Zheng Bixue, Li Shaowei, Li Lie, Ye Rufen, He Yunming, Kuang Wenwei, Liu Weiran, Ma Ke, Liu Kailuo; writer Yan Geyi; and screenwriter Zhang Jialu, etc.

Xu Zheng

Director, producer and actor

After graduating from Shanghai Theater Academy in 1994, Xu Zheng joined Shanghai People’s Theater as an actor. By starring the drama "The Color of the Stock," he won the Best Actor of the Magnolia Drama Award and the Actor Award of Chinese Drama Golden Lion Award. With the experience on drama stages, he began to play a role in the TV play field, starring the simple and cute pig in the "A Pig in the Brilliant Spring" and Li Wei, who is both good and evil, in “The Official, Li Wei”. He thus left a deep impression on audiences’ minds and was known by the public. In 2006, Xu Wei received further attention with his wonderful performance of the villain Feng Dong in “Crazy Stone”. Then he collaborated with Ning Hao, Zhang Jianya and other directors on outstanding works, like “Call for Love” and “One Night in Supermarket” and “No Man‘s Land”, etc.

Lost in Thailand

In 2012, Xu Zheng amazed the world with his achievements by shifting from on-the-screen work to work behind the scenes. As China’s first “Double Billion Director”, director Xu Zheng’s works “Lost in Thailand” and “Lost in Hong Kong” have stricken the audiences’ chord with the nature of being sincere and close to life. The box-office of his debut “Lost in Thailand” hit 300 million in 5 days after staging, creating a new record of first-week box-office for Chinese film, winning finally a box-office of nearly 1.3 billion. Thereby, he also won the China Huabiao Award for Outstanding Youth Director.

 In 2015, Xu Zheng served as the image ambassador for the SIFF Asian New Talent Awards, and personally offered help to young filmmakers. In recent years, he has produced Song Haolin\'s " Mr. Zhu’s Summer", Ren Pengyuan\'s "A or B" and Su Lun\'s "How Long Will I Love U". He also co-produced Wen Muye\'s “Dying to Survive “ with Ning Hao.

How Long Will I Love U、Dying to Survive

LIAO Ching-Sung

Editor, producer

He has taught at the Department of Motion Picture of National Taiwan University of Arts, Department of Radio, Television and Film of Shih Hsin University, etc. and was a full-time Associate Professor at the Institute of Motion Picture Creation of Taibei National University of the Arts with a teaching experience of more than 20 years.

Since entering the industry in 1973, LIAO Ching-Sung has edited hundreds of films. He worked with Hou Hsiao-hsien, Yang Dechang, Wan Ren and other directors to jointly create popular works such as "The Sandwich Man", "The Terroriser", "Dust in the Wind," and others.

A City of Sadness

The Assassin

 "A City of Sadness" winning the Golden Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival and "Love You Love Me" winning the Silver Bear Award at Berlin International Film Festival and "The Assassin" winning the Best Director Award at the Cannes International Film Festival are all edited by him. In 1996, LIAO Ching-Sung was selected as the best screenwriter for the 33rd Golden Horse Award with the film “Super Citizen Ko”.

Flowers of Shanghai

In 1999, LIAO Ching-Sung acted as the producer for Hou Hsiao hsien\'s film "Flowers of Shanghai" with his role transformed for the first time. He has thus developed a new career and been committed to assisting young directors in filming. In 2002, he won the Golden Horse Award for Best Taiwan Filmmaker.

Since then, he has served as the producer of the film “Dana Sakura” directed by Wan Ren, “Three Times” and “The Red Balloon” directed by Hou Hsiao hsien. In recent years, he has begun to try different expression styles for film. He has participated in the editing of the situation comedy "Mr. Donkey", the literary movie "Mr. No Problem ", and the documentary "Twenty-Two", etc.

Jojo HUI

Producer and screenwriter

In 1990s, Jojo HUI joined United Filmmakers Organization (UFO) and worked with Chen Kexin on producing a series of films winning both popularity and box-office including "Alan and Eric Between Hello & Goodbye", “He Is a Woman, She Is a Man" and "Comrades: Almost a Love Story". Then she joined Applause established by Chen Kexin. After supervising the production of several high-quality Asian films, she worked together with Chen Kexin in Mainland China in 2005 on creating “Perhaps Love”, “The Warlords” and “American dreams in China”, etc. winning praise, box-office as well as honors such as the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards.

Perhaps Love

Soulmate

In recent years, she has cooperated closely with emerging directors and has produced “Soulmate” “This Is Not What I Expected”, offering help and support to the new generation of Chinese filmmakers.

The Warlords

Jojo HUI is also a screenwriter. She has won the 22nd and 27th Hong Kong Film Awards for best screenwriter nominations with her original script “Three: Going Home” and “The Warlords”.